The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 27, January, 1860 · Chapter 6The Experience of Samuel Absalom, Filibuster. (1)
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[Concluded.]
Some time after the departure of the riflemen, a detail of eight or nine men from our company was ordered off towards the lake shore, and soon afterward another smaller one to Potosí, a little village four or five miles to the northward of Rivas, bearing orders to Captain Finney's rangers, who had gone to scout in that direction. The rest of us ate supper, and then lay listening for the boom of the little field-piece, which should tell us that the rifles had met the enemy. But the extraordinary toils and watchings of the last fortnight were too overpowering, and we were all soon buried in dreamless sleep.
In an hour or two I was awakened by horses' feet clattering over the stony pavement of the portería, or gateway to the square courtyard, in one of whose surrounding corridors we usually slept,—on blankets, cow-hides, or hard tiles, according as each man was able to furnish himself. It was the party returning from their scout on the lake. They unsaddled and fed their animals in the yard, and afterward set about frying plantains and fresh stolen pork for supper. As they talked over their provant in the room behind me, I caught most of their adventure, without the discomfort of rising or asking questions. Near the lake they had chased and captured some natives, whose behavior was suspicious and showed no good-will toward the Americans. The officer of the party, thinking them spies, had carried them part of the way to Rivas to be examined; but, fortunately, perhaps, for the captives, he afterwards relented and set them at liberty. They also talked of a small boy who had peeped out of the bushes as they rode by, and shouted to them, "Quieren for Walker?" (Are you for Walker?) and then adding energetically, "Yo no quiero filibustero god-damn!" darted away out of sight, before any one, who was so minded, could have shot the little rebel.
"Be sure," said one of the men at supper,—a noted croaker and tried coward, against whom I bear a private grudge,—"the boys have learned this from the old greasers; and we are going to have all the people of Nicaragua to fight."
Later in the night, the other party, which had been sent to Potosí, came in with panting mules, excited countenances, and one of their number stained with blood from a wound on his thigh. They told us, that, failing to find Captain Finney at Potosí, they had stretched their orders, and gone forward to Obraja, unaware that it was occupied by the enemy. At the entrance of the village, whilst riding on in complete darkness, they were challenged suddenly in Spanish. Taken by surprise, they replied in English, and, before they could turn their animals, were stunned with the glare and crash of a musket-volley, a few feet ahead of them. They recoiled, and fled with such precipitation that one of the riders was tossed over his horse's head;—however, scrambling to his feet, he found sense and good-luck to remount; and the whole party made good their flight to Rivas, with no further damage than two slight flesh-wounds,—one on the trooper, and one on his mule.
The excitement upon this arrival soon subsided, and I had again fallen into unconsciousness, when a rough shake of the shoulder aroused me, and the voice of the old sergeant dinned in my ear,—"Come here! saddle up! saddle up! You are detailed for Obraja." In a few moments I was mounted, and, with two others of the company, rode out of the gateway into the street. There we found awaiting us a fourth horseman, charged with orders for the riflemen at Obraja, and whom it was our duty to accompany as guard.
After clearing Rivas, we clattered over the road at a fast pace, rousing all the dogs at the haciendas as we passed, and leaving them baying behind us, until we came to where the Potosí road forked off to the right; thenceforward, fearing an ambush, we rode slowly and with great caution, stopping often to dismount and reconnoitre moon-lit fields beyond the roadside hedges. At length, after passing a picket of our riflemen, we came to a large adobe house directly on the roadside, where we found the main body of the detachment encamped and sleeping. The house stood something under half a mile from Obraja, and was the residence of that friendly alcalde who on the approach of the enemy had removed with his family to Rivas, and placed General Walker on his guard. As we rode into the yard, we had some ado to keep our horses from treading on the sleeping soldiers, who lay scattered all round the building, and also in its open corridor fronting toward Obraja. Dismounting here, our courier went into the house to communicate with Colonel O'Neal, the commander of the detachment,—leaving it to us either to tie up, and lie where we were until morning, or pass farther up the road, where Captain Finney's rangers were stationed. I chose to go forward and hear the rangers' story, who, we were told, had had a slight brush with the enemy in the beginning of the night.
After riding near quarter of a mile, I came to another adobe building on the roadside, occupied by a small party, and forming Colonel O'Neal's advanced post, at the distance of four hundred yards or more from Obraja. Here they told me that Captain Finney's company, whilst riding into Obraja early in the night, had been hotly fired upon, and Captain Finney himself was brought off struck in the breast, wounded mortally. The riflemen had as yet made no attack, but awaited daylight. The number of the enemy was not known; though rumor placed it between one thousand and fifteen hundred. Whatever it was, they were apprehensive; for throughout the night we heard them barricading the town with great hurry and clatter; and it gave us sad discomfort to think that in the morning there would be these walls to climb before our men could get at them. It was the occasion of much bitter cursing that there should be delay until this was accomplished, and of one man's protesting seriously that it was, and had been, General Walker's endeavor, not to whip the greasers, but to get as many Americans killed in Nicaragua as possible,—he nourishing secret and implacable hatred against them for some cause. However, I think this judgment weak and improbable, though plausible enough from some points of view.
During the night there was some firing between our party and the enemy from under cover in front, with some few wounds, and one man on our side shot through the hat,—who thereupon, pulling off the injured head-piece, and looking at it gravely, declared he would always thenceforward wear his hat with a high crown; for, said he, had this one been half an inch lower, the bullet must have struck the head:—which drollery, in consideration of the circumstances, was allowed to pass for an exceeding good stroke.
We passed a disturbed and rather uneasy night, fearful all the time of being cut off or overwhelmed. But morning breaking at length, a party of riflemen came up from Colonel O'Neal's camp below, and affairs were immediately changed for the offensive. The riflemen moved forward against the town, whilst the rangers were posted at several points along the road to guard against surprise from the bushes. Among these latter I took my stand. The squad which went forward could not have numbered above sixty men, and was armed with Mississippi rifles only,—without wheel-piece of any kind, or even bayonets. I took them for a party of skirmishers, sent ahead to clear the way; yet they were not followed or supported by any additional force that I saw then or afterwards.
As they passed up the road, I observed that the most listless and dead amongst them were at length stirred up and thoroughly awake,—though not with enthusiasm or martial impatience. Some seemed uneasy and careworn, and glanced about nervously; had their countenances not been unalterably yellow, they would certainly have been white. One fellow near the rear was trembling sadly, and carried his rifle in an unreasonable manner,—promising aimless discharges, and, perhaps, dodgings into the bushes. But this one was excusable, and I may have slandered him; for ague had shaken the life almost out of him so often that shaking was become natural, and little else could be expected of him; and, furthermore, a pale face or unsteady joints are not always weathercock to a fainting spirit. In some constitutions these may come from other emotions than fear; and it often happens that your most lamentable shaker will stand you longer at the breach than the man of iron nerve, with a white liver. I have seen such. However, the majority of these were resolute and dangerous-looking men, and, though without any marks of inordinate zeal, seemed willing enough to fight whatever appeared. They held their rifles in the hand cocked, and, as they advanced, threw their eyes sharply into the bushes on either side the road,—having received orders to shoot the first greaser that showed himself, without awaiting the word.
In a few moments after, the party having disappeared behind a turn of the road, we suddenly heard the cracking of their rifles, mingled with the deeper crash of more numerous musketry; and it was a vivid sensation, new to me, that some of those bullets were surely finding billets in the bodies of men. This seemed an encounter with a force of the enemy outside of the town; and directly we thought, from the movement of the noise, that our riflemen were driving them in. Then there was a louder and more rapid volleying of musketry, which completely drowned the rifles, and seemed to tell us that our men were come in sight of the barricades. This lasted but a moment, when it was succeeded by a scattered fire of fewer guns, and finally by irregular volleys. We knew that our men had fallen back; and we had not once thought it would be otherwise. Indeed, it had been a rarely preposterous enemy who should allow himself to be driven from behind a rampart by that handful of dispirited, men.
Whilst things were on this foot, the courier of last night came up with his guard, having been sent by Colonel O'Neal, who had remained at the alcalde's house below, to get news of the attacking party. As I was still under his orders, I joined him, and rode forward towards the combatants,—not without sundry misgivings, known to most men who are about to enter a fray for the first time,—or the twentieth time, perhaps, if the truth were confessed. We found the riflemen drawn up in the road, protected by the raised side-bank and cactus-hedge from an enemy concealed amongst some trees and bushes, a little distance to the right of the road in front. Above the trees, within pistol-shot, was visible the red roof of a church which stood on the plaza of Obraja, where were barricaded, as they said, over a thousand greaser soldiers. All other sign of the town than this one roof was shut in from view by the abundant foliage which embowered it. As we approached the riflemen, we dismounted and led our horses, fearing to attract a shower from the enemy, who lay in the bushes firing irregularly. The officer of the party told us to report to Colonel O'Neal that he had advanced within sight of the plaza, and, finding it strongly barricaded, and "swarming with greasers," he held it folly to assail it with fifty men, and so had retreated. He mentioned some loss,—very small for the noise that had been made,—of which I remember the name of one Lieutenant Webster, shot through the head. He charged us to ask Colonel O'Neal's permission to fall back on the adobe where we had passed the night, as the enemy appeared to be moving around his right, and he was fearful of being surrounded in the open road. But, directly after, seeing the enemy were in earnest to cut him off, he concluded to fall back on the house upon his own responsibility, and did so, and with the adobe walls around him probably felt secure enough against such an enemy.
We returned to the lower camp, and delivered our report to a boyish-looking person, in unepauletted red flannel shirt, but who was no other than Colonel O'Neal, the officer in command. He was popular amongst his men, and reputed a brave and energetic officer. He probably mistrusted from the first that his force was too small; and hence the delay in the attack, and the dispatch of the little party of riflemen merely to satisfy General Walker. Be that as it may, upon hearing our report, he recalled the advanced party, and immediately sent off to Rivas to say he could do nothing against the town without a reinforcement.
In the mean time those of the men who were off guard lay about under the trees and ate oranges, with which the alcalde's yard was stocked plentifully, whilst such wounded as had been brought in were laid on the floor of the house, and their wounds probed by the surgeon; whereupon, being but young soldiers mostly, there arose loud outcries and dismal bellowings. For my own part, I set about comforting my mule, who had been under saddle since leaving Rivas. I unsaddled him, brought him an armful of tortilla corn from the alcalde's kitchen-loft, some water from the well, and left him making merry as if he had nothing worse ahead of him.
Some time after mid-day the rest of our company came out from Rivas, and we immediately had orders to ride up the road and fire upon the enemy's outpost,—which, as the riflemen had been withdrawn and our advanced picket was now nearly half a mile from the town, promised to be a service of some danger. Therefore one of our commissioned officers, afterwards dismissed the service for cowardice, was here seized suddenly with the colic,—so badly, that he was unable to ride with us at his post. Other sick men being left in quarters at Rivas, we counted now but little over twenty men,—armed with Mississippi or Sharpe's rifles, and some of us with the revolvers we had brought from California. After passing the adobe building, garrisoned last night, but now empty, we advanced with great care, our leader taking often the precaution to dismount and peer with bared head over the cactus-hedge which crowned the right-hand bank of the road and shut us in on that side completely. At every turn of the road he repeated his reconnoissance, so that our advance was very slow, giving a watchful enemy almost time to place an ambush, if they had none ready prepared. It was as sweet a place for a trap as greaser's heart could wish. On our right was the impenetrable cactus-hedge, with an open space beyond, terminated at the distance of a few yards by a wood or plantain-patch. On the left was another wood, matted with tangled underbrush and vines which no horseman could penetrate. On either side half a dozen men might couch in ambush and shoot us down in perfect security.
We passed on, however, without disturbance, or sight of an enemy, until we came nearly to the edge of the town and saw the glistening roof of the church appear above the foliage,—where sat sundry carrion-loving buzzards, elbowing each other, shuffling to and fro with outspread wings, and chuckling, doubtless, over the promise of glorious times. As we go on, suddenly heads appear over the bushes less than a hundred yards in front, and we hear the vindictive whistle of Minié-balls above us. Our leader, calling upon us to fire, began himself to blaze away rapidly with his Colt's revolver. We huddled forward, with little care for order, and delivered some dozen Mississippi and Sharpe's rifles. There were nervous men in the crowd; for, after the discharge, dust was flying from the road within thirty feet of us. However, some aimed higher; and when we looked again, the heads had disappeared. One bold greaser stepped out into the road and sent his Minié-ball singing several yards above us, then darted back quickly, before any of us could have him. We waited a moment to see others, but they seemed to be satisfied;—and we were satisfied,—with prospect of a swarm bursting out on us from the town; so, sinking spurs into our weary animals, we made good pace back to the camp,—not without an alarm that a troop of well-mounted lancers was behind us.
In the course of the afternoon, General Henningsen arrived, bringing a fine brass howitzer, and a small reinforcement of infantry—as those armed with rifled muskets and bayonets were called—and artillerymen; and, after some hours' rest, he ordered a fresh attempt with the howitzer, supported by somewhere near two hundred men. This party was received with so fierce a fire at the barricade that they shrank back, leaving the howitzer behind in the road,—so that the enemy were on the point of capturing it, when a brave artilleryman touched off the piece, loaded with grape-shot, almost in their faces, and, strewing the earth with dead, sent the others flying back to the barricade. This artilleryman told me that an old officer amongst the enemy stood his ground alone after the discharge, and swore manfully at the fugitives, but they were panic-struck and took no heed; and it was his assertion, that, had a small part of the riflemen rallied and charged at this time, they might have gone over the barricade without difficulty or hindrance. As it was, the howitzer was scarcely brought off, and the attack failed ingloriously. Whether this story of the artilleryman were true or false, we heard in other ways, by general report, that the riflemen had behaved badly, and quailed as the filibusters had scarcely done before; though, after all, it will seem unreasonable to blame these two hundred or less, disease-worn and spiritless men, for not whipping ten hundred out of a barricaded town. It may be worth saying here, that, seeing things in Nicaragua from a common soldier's befogged view-point, and having only general rumor, or the tales of privates like myself, for parts of an engagement where I was not present, I may easily make mistakes in the numbers, and otherwise do Walker and his officers, or the enemy, injustice. Yet I may be excused, since I am not attempting a history of the war, but merely some account of my own experience, passive and active.
Late in the evening our company assisted to carry some wounded to Rivas. Amongst them was Captain Finney, mentioned before as the first man struck by the enemy. He seemed to be a brave and uncommonly considerate officer, and whilst being carried in on a chair, suffering with his death-wound, he showed concern for his supporters, and insisted on having them relieved upon the smallest sign of fatigue. He was taken to the quarters of a friend, where he died a few days afterward. The other wounded were carried to the hospital, and, finding no one there to take charge of them, we left them to themselves, lying or sitting upon the floor, dismal and uncared-for enough.
After dark we were again in the saddle and riding out to Obraja, in charge of a commissary's party, with provisions for the detachment of foot. But after getting a little way from the town, we were overtaken by an order from General Walker, stopping the provisions, and directing us to ride on and recall the detachment to Rivas; he having changed his mind about dislodging the enemy at this tardy hour. We reached the camp some hours into the night, and, after a little delay, calling in the pickets, and securing some native women who lived in the vicinity, to prevent their carrying word of our movement to the enemy, the detachment commenced its retrograde march,—leaving the enemy victorious, and free to go where they wished.
I remember, several times on this march, when the detachment had made some temporary halt, seeing a grim-faced dog, of the terrier species, trot along the line to the front of the column, where we rangers stood, and then, satisfied seemingly that all was well ordered, turn himself round and trot back to the rear again.
He did this with such a look and air, that it struck me he felt himself in some way responsible for our party. He was, indeed, if the tales current about him were true, the most remarkable character in all that very variegated conglomerate of characters which made up the filibuster army. He had appeared in the camp long before, coming, some said, from the Costa Ricans, with whom he became disgusted on account of their bad behavior in battle on several occasions when he was there to see. After this desertion, if it were thus, he followed the Americans faithfully, through good and bad fortune, retreat or victory; always going into battle with them,—where he actually seemed to enjoy himself,—trotting about amidst the whewing of bullets, the uptossing of turf, and the outcries of wounded men, with calm heart, and tail erect,—envied by the bravest even. On an occasion when General Walker was attacking the Costa-Ricans in Rivas, the dog entered the plaza ahead of the rest, and, finding there one of his own species, he forthwith seized him, and shook him, and put him to flight howling,—giving an omen so favorable, that the greasers were driven out of the town with ease by the others. Even his every-day life was sublime, and elevated above the habit of vulgar dogs. He allowed no man to think himself his master, or attach him individually by liberal feeding or kind treatment, but quartered indiscriminately amongst the foot, sometimes with one company, sometimes with another,—taking food from whoever gave it, but showing little gratitude, and despising caresses or attempts at familiarity. He seemed, indeed, to consider himself one amongst the rest,—one and somewhat, as they say; and his sole apparent tie with his human friends seemed to be the delight which he took in seeing them kill or killed. With this penchant, it was said, he never missed a battle, and went out with every detachment that left the camp to see that none should escape him unaware.—But enough of him,—strange dog, or devil.
The withdrawal from Obraja was opposed, so rumor said, by Henningsen and other officers; and it certainly had a most depressing effect upon the men, whilst it elated the enemy correspondingly, giving them a degree of confidence which they had never attained to before. It was agreed on all hands, by all critics whom I heard, that, having once begun this attempt, General Walker should have carried it through successfully, even if it required his whole force. However, as only part of the enemy's force was on land, the other part being supposed to be still aboard the steamers or on the island, General Walker possibly feared an attack on Rivas, should he send out a very large detachment,—remembering, too vividly, a former blunder, when he left Granada with all his army to attack the enemy at Masaya, and the enemy, making a détour, came upon his camp in Granada, and destroyed baggage, ammunition, and all it contained.
The next day the foot lay quiet in Rivas, and had rest. The rangers, however, were in the saddle almost continuously, and, what with foraging, broken sleep, and expeditions by day and night, those of us who had garrisoned Virgin Bay were become worried nearly past grumbling. On this day our own company rode out to Obraja, to visit the enemy's picket again, and afterwards to San Jorge on the lake, to guard the transportation of a row-boat thence to Rivas. The boat was one of those borrowed from the vessels in San Juan harbor for the purpose of retaking the steamers, and had been rowed up to San Jorge, and was now removed to Rivas, to prevent its seizure by the enemy,—the garrison at Virgin Bay having burnt the brig, and marched to Rivas, when the enemy first appeared on land at Obraja. So that the whole American force (except the crew of the little schooner in which General Walker and his fifty original followers first came to Nicaragua, and which was lying at this time in San Juan harbor) was now concentrated at Rivas; the enemy being eight or nine miles behind them at Obraja, or on the lake with the two steamers. As we rode through the town of San Jorge, the place seemed almost deserted, and I remember lingering with others to haversack some bunches of yellow plantains which hung in an empty house on the plaza. The delay may have come near being fatal to us, for we heard afterwards that we had been gone but a little while, when a troop of the enemy's horse rode into the place, reconnoitred, and returned in the direction in which they came. Their reconnoissance in San Jorge was explained soon afterwards.
Some time in the last half of the night following, I was detailed, along with a considerable detachment from two mounted companies, to ride on a scout toward Obraja. On the outward ride I was but half-awake, and my recollection of our course is confused: however, I think it was somewhere between Potosí and Obraja that we came to a halt, and I was aroused by some excitement in the party. Pickets were hastily posted in several directions, whilst the officers gathered about some natives awakened from a neighboring hut, and seemed to question them earnestly. We soon heard that the enemy were on the road moving from Obraja, and that a large force had a little while before passed this place going eastward. The natives, prone to exaggeration, declared that this force had been an hour in passing,—with baggage, eight pieces of cannon mounted on ox-carts, several hundred pressed native Nicaraguans, tied and guarded to prevent their running away, and a long train of women to nurse the wounded. The Chamorristas, it seemed, had been around pressing all the native men they could find into service against the Americans; and whilst we were here, two, who had been hiding all day in the bushes to avoid the conscription, came out and asked us to take them with us to Rivas,—they preferring, if forced to take sides, to join el valiente Walker.
This is the stripe of most Central American soldiers. The lower classes are lazy and cowardly, little concerned about politics, and must generally be impressed, let the cause of war be what it may. And I am persuaded, that, since General Walker never harnessed them into his service, as their own chiefs were doing perpetually, but let them swing in their hammocks and eat their plantains, (provided they lived beyond his forage-ground,) un-called-for, they were so far well satisfied with his government. However, their sympathy, supposing he had it, were worth little to him; since it takes a stronger impulsion than this to put them in motion to do anything,—a strong pulling by the nose, indeed,—such as their native rulers know how to apply.—But this is speculative, and neither here nor there.
After getting all the information concerning the enemy that was to be had from these people, the detachment returned to Rivas at a fast trot, with the two friendly natives mounted behind, on such stronger animals as were able to carry double burden. We all supposed, that, now the enemy were again out of cover and on the open road, or, leastwise, in the confusion of a new camp, there would be an immediate attack on them. But General Walker followed his own head; and, after making our report, we saw no stir, and heard nothing until morning,—when it was known that the enemy were all moved into San Jorge, with only some two miles' space between us. This place, being on the lake, was more convenient for provisions, which were easily brought by the steamers from the island of Ometepec and the towns and haciendas along the shore,—and the enemy had gained boldness to go there by our repulse at Obraja: or it may be that the force at Obraja had come down from Granada by land, and so only continued their march to San Jorge,—though the rumor was, that they had landed from the lake, as I have said.
But be that as it may, time was given them to barricade at San Jorge, till near the middle of the forenoon, and then Generals Henningsen and Sanders were sent out with some four hundred riflemen and infantry to drive them into the lake, which lay some few hundred yards behind them. During the first part of the attack, our company remained in Rivas, listening anxiously to the uproar at San Jorge,—every volley fired by the combatants being borne distinctly to us by the east wind. For some time there was a continuous rattle of musketry, with rapid detonations of deeper-mouthed cannon,—at each roar shaking our suspended hearts,—for we knew that our own men were using small arms only. After a while this abated, grew irregular, and almost ceased. An order then came for our company to mount and join the combatants. We galloped down the broad and almost level highway which passes between Rivas and San Jorge, bordered a great part of its length, on either side, by cactus-hedges, broken at various intervals by the grassy by-lanes that run out to the neighboring haciendas or parallel roads. At places where there is a slight elevation, the bottom of the road is worn several feet below the level by the carts which ply between Rivas and the lake. Opposite one of these, where the banks sloped at a sharp angle, we came upon General Henningsen and a detachment of musketeers resting on the right bank of the road, and halted beside them. The men were sitting under the shade of an adobe, refreshing themselves with oranges; and those in the nearest rank were close enough to hand us fruit and keep their seats on the grass. Five or six hundred yards up the road, the large church which stood on the plaza of San Jorge, with the door facing us, and a low wall of white stone running squarely from its side across to the right, ended the vista between banks of green foliage. Our view stretched across the plaza, which seemed to be empty and unbarricaded; and I remember the painted door of the church beyond, the red-tiled roof, the low, flanking wall of white stone, all dazily trembling in the unsteady atmosphere radiating from the heated road,—whilst a cloud of white smoke was sailing slowly away to the west. It was a hot and tranquil scene. But I always think of it with the same secret disgust with which the shipwrecked traveller looks upon the placid ocean the day after the angry storm has passed over it; for it was here I first saw the cruelty of a round shot.