The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1924-02-29
| CAPTAINS OF
ADVENTURE
BY ROGER PoCoCK
By
By ROGER POCOCK

" hefr14 company
Walker to keep his communication
open with the sea while he held his
capital. Granada, the most beautiful
| Of all Central American cities, must
be abandoned, and, lest the enemy win
the place, it must be destroyed. So
Walker withdrew his sick men to an
island in the big Lake Nicaragua
while Henningsen, an Englishman, his
second in command. burned ana aban-
doned the capital
But now, while the city burst into
flames, and the smoke went up as from
volcano. the American garrison broke
loose, rified the liquor stores and lay
drunk in the blazing streets, so the al
lied army swooped down, cutting of
the retreat to the lake. Henningsen, vet
eran Of the Carlist and Hungarian re-
volts, a knight Grant of lost causes,
took three weeks to fight his way three
miles, before Walker could cover his
embarkment on the lake. There had
been four hundred men in the garrison,
but only one hundred and fifty an
swered the roll call in their refuge on
the Isle of Omotepe. In the plaza of
the capital city they had planted a
spear, and on the spear hung q raw
hide with this inscription:
Here was Granada ~
ruins four thousand out Of six thousand
OF the allies persisted; but even they
were more fortunate than a Costa
Rican army of invasion, which killed
fifty Of the fllibusters, at cost of ten
thousand men slain by war and pesti-
lence. 1t always worked out that the
killing of one filibuster cost on the
average eight of his adversaries.
Four months followed of confused
fighting, in which the Americans slow
ly lost ground, until at last they were
besieged in the town OF Rivas, melting
the church bells for cannon balls, dy-
ing at their posts of starvation. The
neighboring town of San Jorge was
held by two thousand Costa Ricans,
and these Walker attempted to dis
lodge. His final charge was made with
fifteen men into the heart of the town.
No valor could win against such odds,
and the orderly retreat began on Rivas.
Two hundred men lay in ambush to
take Walker at a planters house by
the wayside, and as he rode YEARLY at
the head of his men they opened fire
from cover at a range of fifteen yards.
Walker refined in his horse, fired six
revolver shots into the windows then
rode on quietly erect while the storm
Of lead ragged about him, and saddle
after saddle was emptied. A week af-
terward the allies assaulted Rfvas, but
left six hundred men dead in the field,
so terrific was the fire from the ram.
parts.
1t was in these days that British
naval officer came under flag of truce
from the coast to treat for Walkers
surrender
Il presume, sir" was the filibuster's
greeting, that you have come to apollo
gize for the outrage offered to my flag
and to the commander of the Nieara-
guam schooner-of-war GranadaT"
IF they had another schooner" said
the Englishman afterward, Il believe
they would have declared war on Great
Britain"
Then the United States navy treated
with this peppery little lawyer, and on
the first of May, 1857, he grudgingIy
consented TO being rescued.
During his four years fight for en-
pire, Walker had enlisted three thou
sand five hundred Americans-and the
of wounds was one hundred
and thirty-seven for every hundred
men. A thousand fell. The allied re-
publics had twenty-one thousand sol
diers and tens thousand Indians-and !
lost fifteen thousand killed.
Two years later, Walker set out /
again with hundred men to conquer I
Central America, in defiance of the |
British and United States sauadrons. /
sent TO catch him, and in the teeth of /
i've armed republics He was cap I
-ured by the British, shot by Spanish |
Americans upon a sea beach in Hondu- /
-as. and so persisted. fearless to the
md.