 Near the end of his conquest of Gaul in 52 BC, Julius Caesar faced a serious setback trying to take the city of Jagovia. Some of his Edowan allies had turned on him and slaughtered some of his men, taking the food they were transporting to the rest of Caesar's army with them when they were done. The men who turned on Caesar had been deceived by their chief in Letavicus, who told them that Caesar had slaughtered the other Edowan cavalry that were left behind with the army. Caesar sent the remaining Edowan to present themselves to their tribesmen to prove Letavicus a liar, and the Edowins rejoined Caesar, but the damage had been done, and Caesar was stuck outside of Jagovia without the resources to take the city. The idea of retreat was anathema to Caesar, who continued sending waves of attacks against the armies of Vercingetorix. His armies were camped on top of some of the surrounding hills, and Caesar was only doing this for the purpose of maintaining the facade of Roman invincibility. If he were to retreat, the illusion would be shattered, but Caesar had no other choice. By retreating, his army could regroup and add four legions as reinforcements, giving him ten legions total, a large enough army to take the city. So Caesar withdrew his army. But Caesar noticed that one of the forts that had previously been occupied by the Gauls on top of the hill was nearly empty. Some deserters had found their way into the Roman camp, and Caesar interrogated them to find out that Vercingetorix was worried that the Romans might capture one of his smaller hilltop forts, so he had drawn his men from the larger fort to reinforce the smaller one. Caesar thought this presented an opportunity to regain the impression of Roman invincibility so he concocted a plan. He sent a cavalry patrol to scope out the hill that Vercingetorix was busy fortifying. They had instructions to make plenty of commotion so that their enemy knew they were there. Then Caesar took the army's slaves and mounted them on pack mules. He gave them helmets and armor and placed a few actual cavalrymen around them for appearances. The next morning, he sent his decoy cavalry to the same spot his patrols were drawing attention the night before. Following behind the fake cavalry was a real legion staying hidden in a wooden area. The Gauls were afraid of an attack from Caesar from this area, so they took the bait. Their forces were sent to fight off the fake cavalry, and Caesar used the distraction to sneak his legions into the fort. Caesar's troops were instructed to keep their shields covered so nobody could see their crests, and they strolled in a few at a time rather than as a unit. When a signal was given, the Roman legions charged the fort from one side while the ally to Edaway forces charged from the opposite side, with most of the forces occupied by the decoy. There were few Gauls left in the camp, and the Romans took them by complete surprise. When Caesar believed his men had done enough damage, he ordered his trumpeters to sound the recall. But many of the troops couldn't hear it, and they continued their surge all the way up against the wall of the city near the camp. The forces inside the city eventually drove the Romans back, but Caesar was able to send legions to cover their retreat, and they were able to successfully withdraw. They suffered heavy casualties, 700 soldiers, and at least 46 centurions were killed, but the plan to terrify Vercingetorix with the might of the Roman army had worked because of his successful ruse with the slaves and the packmules. As a child, William Walker had read Caesar's personal account of the conquest of Gaul in its original Latin. Nearly two millennia after the battle outside of Jagovia, Walker would adapt Caesar's idea into one of his own, and by doing so, he would effectively conquer Nicaragua. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. In the previous episode, we covered William Walker's successful conquest of the Ligitamista capital, the city of Granada. At the end of the episode, he was getting ready to sue for peace with the commander of the Ligitamista forces in Rivas and set up a provisional government for his new republic, which will be the subject of today's episode. I hate breaking these stories into several episodes, but I'm trying to keep everything near 30 minutes, and I like doing the stories justice. So if you haven't listened to the previous two episodes, I strongly encourage you to do so before listening to this one. Many of the shows in this podcast can work as standalone episodes, but you're really going to want the background information here. When we left off, Walker had taken Granada, released the political prisoners, stopped his men from looting the city and executing the Ligitamista leaders, and sent word of his victory to Ligitamista Major General Pansiano Carra in the city of Rivas. This all took place on October 12th, 1855. But we also need to remember that before Walker left for Granada, he sent Parker French and Frank Anderson to California to find new recruits. They arrived back in Nicaragua five days after Granada was captured with 61 new American volunteers, as well as a large supply of ammo and another six pound cannon. One of the new recruits, Birkitt Fry, attended West Point for a time, though he never graduated. Parker French had heard of the victory at Granada, and he wanted to earn some glory of his own. When he first came to Nicaragua, he traveled up the San Juan River to San Carlos. When he passed through, he saw Ligitamistas holding the fort there, and he proposed the idea to the new recruits of capturing the fort. The men enthusiastically agreed. French and Zintel was outdated though. The Ligitamistas had long since abandoned their garrisons at San Carlos, and they had been replaced by private security forces of New York immigrants with military backgrounds from various European countries who had been hired by the transit company to protect the passengers and gold shipments that passed through the area from California. Only a handful of these men remained at San Carlos, but French was aware of none of this. So French and his men continued on to San Carlos rather than meeting with Walker, and they were able to spot European troops guarding the fort. They probably assumed there were many more than there actually were, and they also saw the fort's many large cannons sticking out from the walls. So the men got cold feet, and they ordered Joseph Scott, the same man Walker, commandeered in the previous episode to take them to Granada. French brought the new recruits to Walker and told him of the mission at San Carlos that he backed out of. Now Walker was outraged, which caught French by surprise. From Walker's perspective, the entire operation would have needlessly put the civilians on the steamer in danger, but it wasn't French who Walker was most appalled by. It was Birk at Fry, the West Point dropout whose military experience should have been enough to teach him that this was a stupid plan, at least that's what Walker said. But he needed men, and Fry had already been promised an officer's commission by Walker's recruiting agents in Florida, and Walker kept the promises made by them by making Fry a colonel, which was the rank he'd been promised in California. French also asked to be made an officer, but Walker instead made him his commissary of war, Charles Doubleday's former position, which allowed him to keep French close by to keep an eye on him. But if this were all there was to the story of the aborted mission at San Carlos, it would hardly be worth telling. Joseph Scott wasn't an idiot. He was aware of the garrison at San Carlos, and he was equally aware that they probably saw his steamer approach and then abruptly turn away from the town. So he wouldn't even let any passengers board his steamer for his next trip to San Carlos, because he was afraid the ship would be attacked. Several hundred people were left at Lavier-Hinn, having expected to have been on the ship. Scott's intentions may have been to keep these people safe, but he unknowingly put them in danger. While Scott was taking the empty steamer back to San Carlos, Legitimista Colonel Florencio is a truck, probably my worst pronunciation out of all these names I'm mispronouncing, but it's X-A-T-R-U-C-H. He was leading a band of soldiers from Rivas to Lavier-Hinn. The only people left in the village were citizens, so they were defenseless against the Legitimista troops who shot at anybody they saw when they entered Lavier-Hinn. The people there panicked and fled into the buildings, dragging their wounded with them as best they could. But three Americans had already been killed, and the Legitimista troops were checking their pockets. The soldiers then used the butts of their muskets to break down the door of the transit company headquarters, where they sieved Corulent Cushing and several others and took them hostage. Eventually, the transit company paid $2,000 ransom for Cushing's release. But the three dead Americans were the real source of outrage, and Walker turned this catastrophe into an opportunity. He turned the local Legitimista newspaper into one of his own called La Nicaraguence, which was published half in Spanish and half in English. This served as Walker's propaganda mouthpiece, and he wrote a scathing editorial at what was now being called the Massacre at Virgin Bay. Even during the war, Americans were treated as neutrals. Now, Legitimista soldiers had killed three Americans and jeopardized an important transit between California and the rest of the United States. Another propaganda opportunity presented itself shortly thereafter. Another steamer on Lake Nicaragua called the San Carlos, passed by Fort San Carlos, the same Fort French wanted to capture. The garrison there was on edge, just as Joseph Scott had suspected after they saw the strange behavior of the steamer carrying French and the other filibusters. So in the San Carlos, the steamer, passed by San Carlos the Fort, I know these names can be confusing, Fort San Carlos fired on the steamer with their large 24 pound cannons. The huge cannonball ripped into the steamer, instantly killing an American mother and the infant she was nursing when the attack came. The cannonball also ripped the foot off another child on the ship. The steamer escaped, but the damage was already done. The passengers were unloaded at Lavier-Hinn where the other terrified civilians still were and the dead mother and child were buried shortly after the three dead Americans from the previous attack. When Walker heard about the shelling of San Carlos, he had all of the civilians at Lavier-Hinn brought to Granada. Using their testimonies, he wrote furious editorials about the atrocities committed against Americans which quickly made their way into the press back in the United States. He also wanted to take action to demonstrate to the transit company that they didn't need to shut down the important route. So Walker made a decision that he hoped would get through to the Nicaraguans. He took one of his legitimacy to prisoners, a cabinet minister named Matia Mayorga and announced that he was holding Mayorga fully responsible for the killings of the Americans and Walker ordered his execution in front of a firing squad. In ordering the execution of a prisoner without trial, especially a prisoner who was being executed for no reason other than to send a message, Walker was looking a lot more like a military dictator and in a sense that's probably what he was starting to believe would be required to maintain order in the war-torn country. So Mayorga was taken to the city plaza, forced to sit in a chair in front of a wall that was already littered with bullet holes from executions carried out by previous legitimistas and a dozen musket-bearing democraticos were ordered to fire. American newspapers would offer praise to Walker for enacting swift revenge for the murder of Americans. Back in Rivas, word of the execution was brought to the legitimista commander, Ponsiana Corral. Along with the news, Walker included in note telling the commander that all of the legitimista prisoners in Granada would be held as hostages to ensure the good behavior of his troops. If further incidents occurred, they would be answered with more executions. Nicaraguan accounts also claim that Walker added an ultimatum if the legitimista leaders did not agree to negotiate a peace treaty by 9 p.m., he would start executing hostages. This ultimatum does not show up in any of the American accounts, so it lacks corroboration. But in return for signing a peace treaty, Corral was also promised a position in Walker's new government. So there was no reason for him not to meet with Walker to make negotiations. He sent word agreeing to come to Granada. So on October 23rd around dawn, Birgit Fry led a small group of Americans to meet Corral outside of Granada and escort him into the city. Fry was chosen largely because he had a military uniform, something few men in Walker's company had. So he looked the most official. But Walker also wanted to give Corral the impression that he had a large American force, and this is where he borrowed from Julius Caesar. Prior to Corral's arrival, Walker gathered up the American civilians in Granada, including the many who had recently been brought up from Labirhin, and he gave them muskets and straw hats with red ribbons indicating their democratic allegiance. Walker positioned them around the town, so when Corral walked through, he couldn't believe how many men Walker had under him. He estimated that there must be at least 1,000 total, half of which were Americans. The true number was maybe half that total, with only a fraction of them being Americans. But the deception worked. So if Corral wasn't already going to sign a peace treaty, this certainly convinced him to do so. So they met at the government house in the plaza. Walker was still pretending he couldn't speak Spanish, so he had a translator with him, and the local religious leader, Father Vihil, was present to moderate the negotiations. Moderation was probably unnecessary, though. Corral already had his peace terms written out, and he presented them to Walker. He also had a note from President Estrada, the legitimacy to president, authorizing him to act on behalf of the legitimistas. But Walker informed Corral that whatever terms they reached would have to be acceptable to the Democratic leaders back in the on. Walker was merely there to negotiate the terms they would be presented. Walker made himself out to be merely a military commander, and he barely spoke as Corral explained his terms. He easily agreed to Corral's terms, and a treaty was drafted. The treaty established a provisional government for the Republic of Nicaragua, stipulating that positions would be appointed until Democratic elections could take place, and the elections couldn't take place for at least 14 months after the treaty was signed. Corral nominated a legitimist and moderate named Don Patricio Rivas for the position of provisional president. Walker agreed. The treaty also stipulated that Walker would be the commander of the Army of the Republic with both the American and Nicaraguan troops serving under him. Essentially, Don Rivas was being set up as a figurehead, and Walker was the military dictator, the true political power. Granada was named the capital of the New Republic. The only concession Walker requested was the recognition of a statute from 1838 that would allow citizenship for foreigners. This would open the door for Americans to become citizens of Nicaragua. Corral signed the treaty and Walker had it sent to provisional director Escodo back in Lyon. Word spread so fast that later in the afternoon, Joseph Scott sailed his steamer into the port of Granada and informed them that the legitimista garrisons at San Carlos and El Castillo on the San Juan River had already dispersed. Corral went back to the city of Messiah filling himself the victor. He got the terms he wanted. When he showed his treaty to the other legitimista leaders, he said, quote, we have beaten them with their own game cock. Cock fighting was a popular pastime in Nicaragua at the time. Joseph Scott was now allowed to take all of the Americans back to Labirhin where they could make their way to their original destinations on one side of the United States of the other. But one American named C.J. McDonald stayed behind to inform Walker that he was working for Cornelius Garrison, one of the two owners of the transit company who had finagled ownership from Cornelius Vanderbilt. I'll talk more about all this in a later episode though. McDonald told Walker that Garrison was willing to loan him $20,000 in gold to support the new government. Walker was surprised by the good news and he gratefully accepted. Among other things, he could pay his troops who were so far working for promises and glory. A few days later, Karol brought his legitimacy to soldiers in a granada and handed them over to Walker, the new army commander. The day after, Don Rivas arrived to take his position as provisional president. He took an oath to abide by the treaty in front of Father V. Hill with Walker and Karol standing behind him. Then Walker also took an oath written by Karol. Walker had been informed of Karol's previous comment about beating him with his own game cock and Walker assumed that Karol was trying to humiliate him with the oath. But he hid all this from Karol, wanting to give the impression that he trusted the man and he took the oath. Later in the day, Rivas announced Karol as his new minister of war, which technically meant that he now outranked Walker. So the next day, Karol told Walker that he needed to take another oath, this time for his position as commander of the army. The previous oath was just a swear to abide by the treaty. Again, Walker complied, which apparently surprised Karol, I guess because Walker was a Protestant and the oaths were administered in front of a Catholic priest. But the Nicaraguans probably had an inaccurate estimation of the American's devotion to his faith, which was a lot more flexible than the rigid Catholicism, the conservative Legitimistus practice. So I think this was more of a cultural difference that Karol thought was a religious difference. I'm not really sure though. Later that day, word reached Granada that the Democratic political leaders had officially agreed to the peace treaty. The Civil War in Nicaragua was officially at an end. Political prisoners around the country were released sometimes reluctantly. And one prisoner was released on the condition that he send word of the treaty to the Nicaraguans in Honduras. On November 4th, 1500 Nicaraguan soldiers who had been drafted by one side or the other turned in their weapons and returned to their homes. Throughout the country, people were celebrating the peace. But this would be short lived. Walker already didn't trust Karol, but for the moment, these were just understandable suspicions about his former enemy. This changed when Valle brought him a handful of letters that had been delivered to him. The letters were from Karol and they were addressed to other Legitimistus in Honduras including Guardiola, the butcher who had been dismissed after Walker defeated his forces at La Virgen. Karol was asking them to send troops to oust Walker, feeding them information about the situation in Granada. The only reason Valle had been given the letters is because Walker had made an ally, a father Vihil who spread word to the rest of the Catholic leaders about Walker's sincere intentions to bring peace to the country and support the church. The letters were sent to be delivered by Bonillo Lagos, a parishioner at Managua. The religious leader in Managua, Father Emmanuel Laredo told Lagos to take the letters to Valle instead. Walker was in command of the Nicaraguan army and it was equally beneficial for the church to stay on Walker's good side as it was for Walker to stay on theirs. So Valle got the letters from Lagos and passed them on to Walker. Walker then went to Karol. Now keep in mind that up to this point, Walker had been pretending that he didn't speak a word of Spanish, always communicating through translators. Finally, he revealed his command of the language by confronting Karol in Spanish, asking him if he had indeed written the letters that were signed in his name. Karol was caught off guard, taken aback by Walker's perfect Spanish and amicably admitted his guilt. Walker already had been standing by to arrest him. Walker tried Karol in front of a military court marshal packed with his own men. The military court had horns be at its head, fry as the prosecution and Parker French is the defending attorney. Six Americans served his judges. When he was found guilty of treason, nobody was surprised and Walker ordered his execution. The execution date was set for November 8th. Several women in the city, including Karol's two daughters, begged Walker to show mercy. One of his legitimacy to soldiers tried to recruit men to help him break their leader out of prison, but nobody volunteered. Karol was popular among the Legitimistas and he had many visitors on the day of his execution. At 2 p.m. Charles Gilman escorted the prisoner to the city plaza. Father V. Hill offered Karol a final prayer and then the men got clear of the prisoner who was sitting in the same chair that Mayorga had been sitting in during his execution. Thousands of people were crowded around the plaza and in galleries of the surrounding buildings to witness the execution. Finally, Gilman gave the order. The men fired their weapons and Karol was dead. Unlike the previous execution, the press in the United States would be largely critical of Walker when reporting on this, although it does seem easier to defend Karol's execution than Mayorga's since Mayorga was executed just to send a message. But nonetheless, Walker's decision to execute Karol was an unpopular one back in the States. But the critical press hardly mattered. Two days after Karol was executed, John Wheeler, the US minister to Nicaragua, announced that President Pierce had officially recognized Walker's Republic as a legitimate government. Between this and the Nicaraguan statute he got recognized in the treaty to allow foreigners to become Nicaraguan citizens, Americans started immigrating to Nicaragua in droves. So Walker had seen a string of mostly good luck, but this was all changing pretty rapidly. So there's a ton of stuff going on in the background here. I'm gonna try to just stick to the bullet points of the background stuff here because these filibuster episodes were not originally part of my plan and this is turning to be quite a long detour. But the Nicaragua story with William Walker is just fascinating stuff when you dive into it. This is the stuff that makes for good television. There's political intrigue, corporate conspiracies, action, all kinds of good stuff. And a lot of it's coming together right now without Walker fully being aware of it. So here's the spark notes version of all the enemies Walker was making while everything seemed to be going his way. President Pierce and most of his cabinet seemed to be happy to recognize Walker's Republic of Nicaragua as a legitimate government. But they were occupied with the goings on in the United States, especially since this is all when Kansas was starting to erupt here in late 1855. Remember that this stuff with Walker is all happening at the same time as the Wakerusa War in Kansas that I talked about several episodes ago. So the current administration seems to support Walker, but this is mostly rhetorical, which is good for encouraging Americans to move to Nicaragua, but not much else. But Pierce's Secretary of State, William Marcy, was pretty much the lone cabinet member who was not happy with Walker. So while Walker had agents in the U.S. bringing in hundreds of new recruits, Marcy was sending U.S. Marshals to try to stop some of the American immigrants. In New York, he actually stopped a steamer carrying nearly 300 new volunteers recruited by Parker French and arrested just under 250 of them, a handful of the wealthier immigrants who were traveling in first and second class got away, but the rest of the recruits were stopped from joining Walker. And just because this is a cool anecdote, one of the people stopped from going to Nicaragua was an eight-year-old kid who wanted to go and fight as one of Walker's filibusters. When he was arrested, he blamed the entire Pierce administration, just like most of the other people, and he said, quote, if the boys want to get along, the authorities won't let them. We could all have land of our own if they would only let us off. And one of the adults responded to the kid saying, oh, they want to make us boots at Sing Sing, obviously referring to the infamous Sing Sing prison in New York. So the coolest eight-year-old ever answered, quote, I'd be damned if I do. Marcy also tried to stop new recruits departing from San Francisco, but the Marshals, they were unwilling to arrest passengers, though they did confiscate a handful of cannons that people were trying to bring to Nicaragua. So Walker was getting American reinforcements, but not as many as he would have if the Secretary of State didn't have a vendetta against him. Back in Latin America, a new strain of cholera had broken out in Granada, and unlike the previous one, this one was taking out Nicaraguans and Americans. Remember that the early outbreak of cholera seemed unable to infect the Americans for whatever reason. So Walker was losing men to that illness. Walker was also adopting another strategy from Julius Caesar's playbook by appointing former enemies to government positions, hoping this would pacify any resistance, but it was also a risky move. Walker obviously had no interest in the ideological differences between the legitimistas and the democraticos. He allied with the democraticos for purely practical reasons, but the Nicaraguans were driven ideologically, and the legitimistas saw Walker as an ideological enemy. So Walker was likely underappreciating this element when he was trying to appease the legitimistas, even going so far as to appoint some of the commanders he'd fought against to political positions. To worse than matters, he was finding himself surrounded by legitimista enemies. The democratico president of Honduras had been ousted and the old legitimista commander, Guardiola, who at this point hated Walker for more than just political reasons, had taken over as the president of Honduras to the north of Nicaragua. To the south was Costa Rica, which was run by another legitimista president named Juan Rafael Mora, and he was ready to declare war on Walker to prevent him from conquering his country as well. In all of this, Walker had one really powerful potential ally, and that was Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is the tycoon who originally set up the transit company years before Walker arrived in Nicaragua. When he did so, he had been granted a monopoly privilege by the Nicaraguan government at the time. This was all before the civil war broke out there. This was a crony deal that was made because the Nicaraguan government was promised 10% of the profits. And because this was the popular route for Americans to travel to and from California, this was an incredibly lucrative contract. Remember that this is years before the Panama Canal, so Nicaragua was at this time how most people avoided traveling all the way around South America. Some people did go through Panama as well, especially during the Nicaraguan civil war, but before the canal was built, it wasn't as economical as going through Nicaragua because they had to transfer on land and Lake Nicaragua in Nicaragua made the transfers faster than transferring through Panama. So this monopoly was still in place when Walker invaded, so all the transit company stuff was part of this government-sanctioned monopoly. All the steamers they traveled on, the carriage road between San Juan del Sur and La Virgen, everything. But by the time Walker was using it, Vanderbilt no longer owned the company. Two of his business partners, Charles Morgan and Cornelius Garrison, had conspired against him and secretly bought a controlling interest in the company out from under him. Now a lot of this history is confusing to me and I think that's largely because the historians who have written about it don't understand the business side of things, the economic side of things. So they explain it in this vague pseudo-educated way that historians often do when talking about business and economic dealings in history. So the explanations you find about what Morgan and Garrison were doing are things like they manipulated the stock in their favor, which pretty much tells us nothing about how they actually finagled control of the company, but they did obtain a controlling interest in the transit company and Vanderbilt felt he'd been stabbed in the back by his business partners and he was determined to ruin them. But while Walker was taking control of Nicaragua, Vanderbilt was working to take back control of his transit company and he achieved this close to the same time that the Nicaraguan Civil War ended at the end of 1855. Now Vanderbilt was only interested in conducting his business. He didn't care about Nicaraguan politics unless it interfered with his ability to make money. So when he first read about Walker's peace treaty, right as he was getting his company back, he was inclined to view Walker favorably. Peaceful and stable countries are better for business, right? But Walker was in cahoots with Garrison and Morgan. Remember that they had loaned him $20,000 in gold and they had agreed to transport American immigrants to Nicaragua for free. He had actually been staying informed of Vanderbilt's work, trying to regain control of the country. Let's not forget that Walker was a pretty smart guy who kept himself up to date on any relevant information. But he had made bedfellows with Vanderbilt's corporate enemies and he underestimated Vanderbilt as a threat. Once Vanderbilt got the company back, he was perfectly willing to honor this agreement. But Walker was more ambitious and he already had allies in Garrison and Morgan. They wanted to defeat Vanderbilt and they encouraged Walker to use his new political power to simply seize the transit company assets. So Walker went to provisional president Rivas and convinced him to approve the seizure, justifying it on the grounds that the transit company had never paid the Nicaraguan government the portion of the profits they were entitled to according to the original contract with Vanderbilt. So by February of 1856, Walker got Rivas to officially revoke the old contract with Vanderbilt who is now back in control of the company. And to lease the seized assets to Walker's friend and longtime legal partner, Edmund Randolph, who had since joined Walker in Nicaragua. Walker deliberately waited to have the decree delivered to Vanderbilt until 250 new recruits arrived on one of Vanderbilt's steamers from New Orleans so they wouldn't be stopped. But Vanderbilt did receive word of Walker's actions and this would probably prove to be Walker's downfall. Instead of turning Vanderbilt into an ally, he made him an enemy. Vanderbilt went first to the Secretary of State who was no fan of Walker but also wasn't the biggest fan of Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt wanted Marcy to help him take out Walker but Marcy apparently didn't subscribe to the enemy of my enemy as my friend philosophy and he offered no support. But Vanderbilt had better luck when he met with the ambassadors from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in Washington DC. He told the ambassadors about the new flag Walker had designed for the Republic of Nicaragua. It was modeled, Vanderbilt said, after the flag of the Republic of Texas, the Lone Star flag. This star, like the one on Texas's flag, had five points. The five points Vanderbilt said had meaning. They represented five countries, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. From the flag came Walker's new motto, five or none. Walker's plan, Vanderbilt said, was to conquer all five Central American nations and declare himself the new emperor. Now Vanderbilt was almost certainly fabricating most of this but Walker did fancy himself being the eventual conquer of the rest of Latin America. So even if he was fabricating that part he was hitting probably closer to the truth than he realized. Vanderbilt then encouraged the ambassadors to convince their government to take up arms to overthrow Walker. Costa Rica was particularly receptive as the president there had already wanted to do this. So by making Vanderbilt his enemy Walker had effectively driven the man into an unofficial alliance with the governments that already wanted to see him gone from Nicaragua. Now I really sped through all these matters each of which have their own fascinating details and this is a complicated multi-layered story. So if I get anything wrong please forgive me but this is the basic gist of what Walker would be facing in 1856. Even before Vanderbilt had appealed to the Costa Rican ambassador the president of the country had made a call to arms. He was preparing men to invade Nicaragua and he gave a rousing speech before they departed. Quote, we do not go to contend for a piece of land or to acquire ephemeral power. Not to achieve miserable conquest or much less for sacrilegious purposes. No, we go to struggle for the redemption of our brethren from the most iniquitous tyranny to arms. The moment has arrived. We march into Nicaragua to destroy this impious phalange which has reduced the people to oppressive slavery. We march to fight for the liberty of every man end quote. On March 1st, 1856 Costa Rica's parliament officially declared war on the Republic of Nicaragua. 500 soldiers marched from Costa Rica to Nicaragua in early March led by General Jose Yocan Mora the president's brother. Most were untrained. Many were barefoot or in sandals and the closest thing they had to uniforms were straw hats with a red ribbon. The red ribbon was used to hopefully make the Nicaraguans think that they were democraticos so they could pass through Nicaragua without incident. Behind the troops, the officers were on horseback. One of them was Colonel Manuel Agüello who had previously fought against Walker but after the peace treaty, Walker had followed Julius Caesar's strategy of befriending the enemy by giving him a position in the government. Agüello didn't keep the position long before he defected though and now he was ready to help the Costa Ricans toss Walker out. Walker learned about the declaration of war on March 11th so he and President Rivas declared war in return. He then sent a company of men called the Corps of Observations south under the command of Louis Schlesinger towards Costa Rica. I don't remember if I mentioned him in the Cuba episodes but Schlesinger had been part of Narciso Lopez's last crew of filibusters and his written accounts are one of the most important primary sources we have of Lopez's expedition. Schlesinger also served in the Hungarian army during the revolution against the Austrian Empire in 1848. When he joined Walker in Nicaragua he said he'd been an officer in Hungary's revolutionary army which is why Walker made him an officer in Nicaragua but Schlesinger was lying. He'd only served as a rank and file soldier in the Hungarian army after deserting the Austrian army to avoid punishment for an infraction of the rules but Walker knew none of this. So Schlesinger and his men arrived at a cattle ranch in Costa Rica called the Santa Rose on the 19th and the 240 men under his command were exhausted from their sixth day march so with the exception of the centuries the men in Schlesinger decided to get some sleep at 2 p.m. They were unaware that the Costa Rican soldiers were only 30 miles away. The next morning the men started slaughtering cattle for breakfast. One young man named George Forester Williams was sketching the scene in a notepad. He'd been sent to Nicaragua by Frank Leslie who published a magazine called Frank Leslie's Illustrated. So Williams was basically a war correspondent but this was a novel idea at the time. In mid-afternoon Cal O'Neill, one of the veterans from the Battle of Rivas who was only 19 years old by now came racing back to the ranch on his horse. The Costa Ricans were coming. The charge had already been commanded by General Mora and his 500 Costa Rican soldiers were running toward the ranch with their weapons ready. Schlesinger and his men were taken by surprise and were outnumbered two to one but the Costa Ricans had just finished a 30 mile march and their charge was ordered before they were even allowed to rest so both sides faced different disadvantages. When O'Neill went to find Schlesinger the commander was nowhere to be found so the subordinate officers had to each make their own commands on the fly without the coordination that could be provided by a single commander. So Captain Rudler took his 40 men a little away from the house to take cover behind a fence. There they fired their rifles at the charge in Costa Ricans. They took out several soldiers and even shot some of the officers off their horses but the Costa Ricans had the advantage of numbers and they continued to close the distance. On the other side of the house, Captain Creighton had his men facing the enemy directly. They pressed their backs against the left wall of the house to reload and then they'd step out and fire directly at the Costa Ricans. They took out a dozen advancing soldiers this way. O'Neill joined Creighton with his sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. He was Schlesinger's adjutant but he was unable to organize the men in his commander's absence. The men under Captain Prange had scattered and Captain Thorpe's men were retreating. Captain Legge took his men to the top of the hill to occupy the high ground but he was being driven back down as well losing several of his men to the Costa Ricans. Creighton's men had been able to slow down the advancing Costa Ricans in front of them but the enemy had closed the gap enough that their muskets were now in better range. They fired and 12 Americans hit the ground. Dead or injured, the rest started to flee ignoring their officers. The battle was over in less than 15 minutes. The Costa Ricans took prisoner, the filibusters who chose not to flee but between the casualties, the prisoners and the deserters, the Corps of Observation was destroyed. Dead soldiers littered the ground as General Morrow rode up. A fourth of the Corps of Observation had been killed, 59 to be exact. The Costa Ricans lost only 20 men, one of whom died later from injuries. 18 filibusters had been taken prisoner. Word of the filibuster defeat spread quickly. Walker at this time was back in the city of Rivas establishing headquarters there when Schlesinger showed up with a load of excuses about the incompetence of his men taking no responsibility for the defeat and a battle he missed. O'Neill though also got away and made it to Rivas as well. O'Neill had been with Walker longer than just about anybody at this point and Walker trusted him completely. So when O'Neill gave his account of Schlesinger's cowardice and incompetence, Walker had Schlesinger arrested for neglecting his duty. But Walker gave him parole to await trial and Schlesinger fled the country. Many people believed that Schlesinger had been bribed by the Costa Ricans to betray his men and this is exactly what the New York Times reported after his escape. He was tried in absentia and since he'd fled, he looked even more guilty so he was sentenced to death by firing squad in the event that he was ever recaptured. Walker also authorized his men to shoot Schlesinger on sight so there was no need to take the traitor alive. The Costa Rican forces who fought in the Battle of Santa Rosa rejoined with the rest of the Costa Rican army, a force of 3,000 under the command of President Mora. The 18 filibusters who had been taken prisoner were tried for invading Costa Rica and were found guilty. 15 were sentenced to be executed by firing squad. One of the three who avoided execution was George Forrester Williams. He was apparently able to convince the court that he was a simple correspondent for a newspaper by showing him his notepad full of sketches. The other two who were lucky enough to have their sentences commuted are more of a mystery, most likely because they were unarmed when they were captured and Mora's decree on March 1st declared that anybody bearing arms against Costa Rica would be sentenced to death so they avoided execution on that technicality but they were thrown in prison in San Jose which I'm sure wasn't much better. But the other 15 prisoners were lined up against an Adobe wall in the courtyard of a Costa Rican town called Liberia at 4 p.m. on March 25th. Their clothes were ragged. They'd been wearing the same clothing for weeks without washing. Several of the prisoners were sporting bandages from their battle loans. The Costa Rican army chaplain spoke briefly to the Catholics in the group, the five Irish volunteers, but he ignored the rest who were presumably all Protestant. Of the 15 men, only three were actually Americans. Since Walker signed to the peace treaty, he had received plenty of volunteers from various European countries. At exactly 4 p.m., an officer gave the command for the firing squad to ready their muskets and with another command, they fired. William Walker's good fortune was at an end. The morale of his troops took a hit. The reports of the defeat in the United States would make new volunteers more reluctant to go to Nicaragua. Walker himself had contracted yellow fever and if his situation wasn't gloomy enough, he had enemies he wasn't even yet aware of. Walker didn't know it yet, but Cornelius Vanderbilt had stopped all steamer transports to Nicaragua. But Walker wasn't ready to relinquish his new republic just yet. We will continue the story in the next episode. 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