Part 9 (2/2)

But it was not to save woht to conquer the State of Sonora At the tireat question of slavery was acute; and if in the States next to be admitted to the Union slavery was to be prohibited, the tiht years, when the South must extend her boundaries, and for her slaves find an outlet in fresh territory

Sonora already joined Arizona By conquest her territory could easily be extended to ically the spot selected by William Walker for the purpose for which he desired it was alhout his brief career oneof all his acts was this dreanized His mother was a slave-holder In Tennessee he had been born and bred surrounded by slaves His youth and manhood had been spent in Nashville and New Orleans He believed as honestly, as fanatically in the right to hold slaves as did his father in the faith of the Covenanters To-day one reads his arguments in favor of slavery with the most curious interest His appeal to the humanity of his reader, to his heart, to his sense of justice, to his fear of God, and to his belief in the Holy Bible not to abolish slavery, but to continue it, to this generation is as a as the topsy-turvyis man himself slavery was a sacred institution, intended for the betteriven benefit to the black ht of his white master

White brothers in the South, with perhaps less exalted motives, contributed funds to fit out Walker's expedition, and in October, 1852, with forty-five men, he landed at Cape St Lucas, at the extreme point of Lower California Lower California, it must be remembered, in spite of its name, is not a part of our California, but then was, and still is, a part of Mexico The fact that he was at last upon the soil of the enemy caused Walker to throw off all pretence; and instead of hastening to protect women and children, he sailed a few miles farther up the coast to La Paz With his forty-five followers he raided the town, made the Governor a prisoner, and established a republic with himself as President In a proclamation he declared the people free of the tyranny of Mexico They had no desire to be free, but Walker was determined, and, whether they liked it or not, they woke up to find theh he had not yet set foot there, Walker annexed on paper the State of Sonora, and to both States gave the name of the Republic of Sonora

As soon as word of this reached San Francisco, his friends busied the and adventurous of all lands were enlisted as ”erants” and shi+pped to him in the bark _Anita_

Two months later, in November, 1852, three hundred of these joined Walker They were as desperate a band of scoundrels as ever robbed a sluice, stoned a Chinaman, or shot a ”Greaser” When they found that to command theazine in which the poas stored, rob the ca the ranches Walker learned of their plot, tried the ringleaders by court-martial, and shot them With a force as absolutely undisciplined as was his, the act required the e That was a quality the men with him could fully appreciate They saw they had as a leader one who could fight, and one ould punish The majority did not want a leader ould punish so when Walker called upon those ould follow hiinal forty-five and about forty of the later recruits remained with him With less than one hundred h Lower California, and so around the Gulf to Sonora

From the very start the filibusters were overwhelmed with disaster The Mexicans, with Indian allies, skulked on the flanks and rear Men who in the almost daily encounters were killed fell into the hands of the Indians, and their bodies were lers and deserters were run to earth and tortured Those of the filibusters ounded died from lack of medical care The only instruments they possessed hich to extract the arrow-heads were probes made from ramrods filed to a point Their only food was the cattle they killed on the s, the President of Sonora wore one boot and one shoe

Unable to proceed farther, Walker fell back upon San Vincente, where he had left the arhteen men He found not one of these to welcome him A dozen had deserted, and the Mexicans had surprised the rest, lassoing the them until they died Walker now had but thirty-five men To wait for further re-enforcements from San Francisco, even were he sure that re-enforcements would coht his way to the boundary line of California Between hi the passes, and the Indians hiding on his flanks When within three o, Colonel Melendrez, who co of truce, and offered, if they would surrender, a safe-conduct to all of the survivors of the expedition except the chief But the ht and starved for Walker, would not, within three ed the commander of the United States troops to order Walker to surrender Major McKinstry, as in coo, refused For him to cross the line would be a violation of neutral territory On Mexican soil he would neither embarrass the ex-President of Sonora nor aid him; but he saw to it that if the filibusters reached American soil, no Mexican or Indian should follow theinary boundary he drew up his troop, and like an impartial umpire awaited the result Hidden behind rocks and cactus, across the hot, glaring plain, the filibusters could see the Auidons of the cavalry The sight gave them heart for one last desperate spurt Melendrez also appreciated that for the final attack the ed, Walker, apparently routed, fled, but concealed in the rocks behind hiuard of a dozen men As Melendrez rode into this ambush the dozen riflemen emptied as many saddles, and the Mexicans and Indians stampeded A half hour later, footsore and famished, the little band that had set forth to found an eered across the line and surrendered to the forces of the United States

Of this expedition James Jeffrey Roche says, in his ”Byways of War,”

which is of all books published about Walker theand co Cocupa Indian in theskeleton of so-place wasbeside his bones spoke his country and his occupation--the only relic of the would-be conquistadores of the nineteenth century”

Under parole to report to General Wood, co the Depart vessel to San Francisco, where their leader was tried for violating the neutrality laws of the United States, and acquitted

Walker's first expedition had ended in failure, but for him it had been an opportunity of tremendous experience, as active service is the best of all e, the best preparation Nor was it inglorious, for his fellow survivors, contrary to the usual practice, instead of in bar-roo the blaht one and all who doubted his ability or his courage Later, after five years, h ten to twenty years his senior, followed hiht to coua there was the usual revolution On the south the sister republic of Costa Rica was taking sides, on the north Honduras was landing arovernenerals, and not one strong man

In the editorial roo the ua

In its confusion of authority he saw an opportunity to make himself a power, and in its tropical wealth and beauty, in the laziness and incoreater, fairer, more kind Sonora On the Pacific side from San Francisco he could re-enforce his army with men and arms; on the Caribbean side from New Orleans he could, when the moment arrived, people his eua were the Legitimists and the Democrats Why they were at war it is not necessary to know Probably Walker did not know; it is not likely that they themselves knew But from the leader of the Deua three hundred Americans, ere each to receive several hundred acres of land, and ere described as ”colonists liable to military duty” This contract Walker submitted to the Attorney-General of the State and to General Wood, who once before had acquitted hi; and neither of these Federal officers saw anything which seeht to interfere But the rest of San Francisco was less credulous, and the ”colonists” who joined Walker had a very distinct idea that they were not going to Nicaragua to plant coffee or to pick bananas

In May, 1855, just a year after Walker and his thirty-three followers had surrendered to the United States troops at San Diego, with fifty new recruits and seven veterans of the for _Vesta_, and in five weeks, after a weary and store, landed at Realejo There he was met by representatives of the Provisional Director of the Democrats, who received the Californians warmly

Walker was co under Lopez in Cuba, a lieutenant-colonel, and Timothy Crocker, who had served under Walker in the Sonora expedition, a anized as an independent coe Americana” At this time the enemy held the route to the Caribbean, and Walker's first orders were to dislodge hi with his fifty-seven Americans and one hundred and fifty native troops, Walker sailed in the _Vesta_ for Brito, from which port he arrisoned by soht ended in a complete and disastrous fiasco The native troops ran away, and the Aiti theed the enele Their loss was heavy, and a the killed were the two men upon whoitimists placed the bodies of the dead and wounded ere still living on a pile of logs and burned theht march, Walker, the next day, reached San Juan on the coast, and, finding a Costa Rican schooner in port, seized it for his use At this , and in open flight, two ”gringos” picked up on the beach of San Juan, ”the Texan Harry McLeod and the Irishman Peter Burns,” asked to be per,” Walker writes, ”for the soldiers to find that soether desperate, and save increased th to the co history it would appear as though for success the first requisite must be an utter lack of hu except with absolute seriousness With forty ua, a country with a population of two hundred and fifty thousand souls and as large as the combined area of Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshi+re, and Connecticut And yet, even seven years later, he records without a save his arth” And it is most characteristic of theover this addition to his forces, to maintain discipline two Americans who had set fire to the houses of the enemy he ordered to be shot A weaker man would have repudiated the two Americans, who, in fact, were not members of the Phalanx, and trusted that their criainst hireatly in his stern discipline He tried the ot away; and, as it ht appear that Walker had connived at his escape, to the second man was shown no mercy When one reads how severe was Walker in his punishments, and how frequently the death penalty was invoked by hirows that these men, as independent and as unaccustomed to restraint as were those who first joined him, submitted to his leadershi+p One can explain it only by the personal quality of Walker hi these reckless, fearless outlaho, despising their allies, believed and proved that with his rifle one Auans, Walker was the one amble, who did not even swear, who never looked at a woman, and who, inIn a fight, his followers knew that for the shot just as unconcernedly as to maintain his authority he would shoot one of thenity to women, he punished with death; but to the wounded, either of his own or of the ene sister and the brave and able he rewarded with instant proue One can find no effort on his part to ingratiate hi the officers of his staff there were no favorites He messed alone, and at all times kept to himself He spoke little, and then with utter lack of self-consciousness In the face of injustice, perjury, or physical danger, he was always calm, firm, dispassionate

But it is said that on those infrequent occasions when his anger asserted itself, the steady steel-gray eyes flashed so ly that those who faced them would as soon look down the barrel of his Colt

The iathered fros of those who fought with hiiously in his ”star of destiny”; but, in all ris of his men that in his history of the war he records, show a distinct appreciation of the Bret Harte school of humor As, for instance, when he tells hoished to make one of them a drummer boy and the Californian drawled: ”No, thanks, colonel; I never seen a picture of a battle yet that the first thing in it wasn't a dead drummer boy with a busted drum”

In Walker the personal vanity which is so characteristic of the soldier of fortune was utterly lacking In a land where a captain bedecks himself like a field-marshal, Walker wore his trousers stuffed in his boots, a civilian's blue frock-coat, and the slouch hat of the period, with, for his only ornament, the red ribbon of the Democrats The authority he wielded did not depend upon braid or buttons, and only when going into battle did he wear his sword In appearance he was slightly built, rather below the ray eyes These eyes apparently, as they gave him his nickname, were his most marked feature