WITH WALKER IN NICARAGUA OR Reminiscences of an Officer of the American Phalanx BY JAMES CARSON JAMISON Captain of Company D, First Light Infantry, Army of tke Republic of Nicaragua E. W. STEPHENS PUBLISHING COMPANY, COLUMBIA, MISSOURI. 1909 J. C. JAMISON. Made from a ara 1857 JUSt after returnin DEDICATION. It is with a grateful heart that the Author dedicates these pages, crude and desultory, he freely admits, written at haphazard and largely from memory, to his friend and kinsman, Mr. Charles White, of Spokane, Washington, whose regard and friendship for more than thirty years have been true and constant. J. c. j. PREFACE. This volume Is written lovingly in memory of those comrades who gave up their lives in battle in a strange land, for a strange people whose bones lie in an alien country, Its soil crimsoned with their lifes blood, poured out to save from misrule and oppression a people who invoked their arms and valor and later heaped upon them the curses of ingratitude. Its pages are offered further as a tribute to the bravery and for titude of those few men who endured the dangers and hardships of the Nicaraguan campaigns, and are still alive. It is with a full heart that the author makes acknowl edgment of the kindly services of those friends whose encouragement largely impelled the writing of these reminiscences, which In no way are offered as a com prehensive history of the enterprises that gave them birth, but merely as a series of pictures of events and incidents that came within his vision and experience. Especially is the author grateful to his old-time friend, Mr. Edwin W. Stephens, of Columbia, Missouri, whose kindness and generosity made possible the pub lication ofthis volume. Particularly is the author under obligations to his dear and esteemed friend, Mr. Fred. S. Barde, of Guthrie, Oklahoma, for his assist ance in the preparation of manuscript. For exact dates of events described he also acknowledges his obliga tions to the book War in Nicaragua written by General Walker, and of which few copies may be found, and to The Filibuster War In Nicaragua, by C. W. Doubleday. Guthrie, Oklahoma, November i, 1909. 7 CONTENTS. DEDICATION 5 AUTHORS PREFACE 7 CHAP. I. NICARAGUA AS FOUND BY WALKER . n II. FIRST BATTLE OF RIVAS . . 25 III. WALKER TAKES GRANADA . . 36 IV. MY GOING TO NICARAGUA . . 58 V. SECOND BATTLE OF RIVAS . . 70 VI. QUESTION OF AMERICAN SLAVERY . 96 VII. DUELLING AMONG THE AMERICANS . 108 VIII. SOCIAL LIFE IN NICARAGUA . . 115 IX. MASAYA AND DESTRUCTION OF GRANADA 127 X. SURRENDER OF WALKER AT RIVAS . 143 XL EXECUTION OF WALKER IN HONDURAS 163 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE TAKEN SOON AFTER His RETURN FROM NICARAGUA IN 1857 . . FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT OF GENERAL WILLIAM WALKER FROM PAGE A DAGUERREOTYPE TAKEN IN SAN FRAN CISCO IN 1854 25 PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR AT PRESENT TIME .,115 WITH WALKER IN NICARAGUA. CHAPTER I NICARAGUA AS FOUND BY WALKER. Walker Leaves San Francisco Brig-Vesta Arrives at Lron Castellon and Munoz State of Soetoty Dual Governments Personality of Walker. It has been said that the remembrance of youth is a sigh and such must be the remembrance of those whom fortune led, these long years gone, to the plains and jungles and mountains of Nicaragua to battle for an oppressed people, tinder the leadership of General William Walker, the Grey-eyed Man of Destiny A sigh for all the glorious valorconsumed in the fire of battle a sigh for the strong manhood that succumbed to wounds and jungle fevers a sigh for the weakness of a people who first supplicated and then reviled those who responded to their entreaties for deliverance from the accumulated wrongs of centuries of corrupt and decadent government. In the 50 s men looked upon life from a more ro mantic view-point than they do now...