Tycoon's War

Apart from keeping Cornelius Garrison on his toes, this propaganda exercise would help blindside Commodore Vanderbilt to the secret deal being put together between Walker, Garrison, and Morgan. But it is unlikely that Vanderbilt was impressed when news of Nicaraguan government interest in the steamer reached him in New York at the end of the month. More than anyone else, Vanderbilt knew that after eighteen months of civil war, the Nicaraguan government was as good as bankrupt and could not afford to buy as much as a rowboat.

In the same January 3 issue in which it published Kewen’s misinformation, the Daily Alta California reported that three young men from San Francisco serving in General Walker’s army in Nicaragua had died—not from bullet, bayonet, or sword, but from disease. In the wake of the rainy season, cholera and yellow fever had made their annual reappearance. And this time, the Americans in Nicaragua were not immune. This, said the paper, “will have a tendency to dampen the zeal of those who may be longing for the charms of Central America.”²

A fire crackled in the grate, for in New York City, it was the dead of winter. Young William Garrison sat across the desk from Charles Morgan in Morgan’s Manhattan office in nervous silence, watching as the business magnate read the document that the young man had brought up from Nicaragua. If Morgan did not agree to the Transit charter proposal, then the deal that William Garrison had been sent by his father to seal would fall to dust.

Sixty-year-old Charles Morgan was a large man, with a large appetite. He had a prominent, ugly nose, a wide mouth, and sad eyes. His thin, gray hair was swept over his pate. Like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Morgan was a self-made man. At fourteen, he took himself to New York City from Connecticut and became a clerk, later opening a ship’s chandlery store. Expanding into importing, he had established a fleet of sailing ships trading with the West In-dies before moving into steamships, becoming a pioneer of steamer services around the Gulf of Mexico in the 1830s. Like Vanderbilt, Morgan had become as much a money man as a steamship man.

Morgan dipped a pen in an inkwell and began to add clauses to the proposed contract. First and foremost, Morgan also wanted Vanderbilt’s exclusive rights to build the Nicaragua shipping canal—Vanderbilt had to be shut out of Nicaragua entirely.

Close to noon on January 3, an ocean steamer pulled away from San Francisco’s Long Wharf and made for the sea. Though due to depart at 9:00 A.M., the Nicaragua Line’s SS Uncle Sam, bound for San Juan del Sur, had been delayed by a visit from U.S. deputy marshals. There were 300 “through passengers” aboard, bound for New York City. The remaining 120 would go no further than Nicaragua. Sixty-five of them had signed up in A. Parker Crittenden’s San Francisco office as colonists and were sailing free of charge. The remaining 55, the Daily Alta California reported on January 6, “went down of their own account.”

Secretary of State Marcy’s determination to cut off support for William Walker had by this time been communicated to the federal authorities in San Francisco. But there was massive sympathy in California for local hero Walker. So the U.S. marshal in San Francisco did not prevent Crittenden from using his law office as a filibuster recruitment center. And even though the daily press published the details of how many Walker recruits sailed on each Nicaragua Line departure, unlike their counterparts in New York, U.S. deputies in San Francisco made no attempt to take recruits off vessels before they sailed. The U.S. marshal’s office did draw a line at artillery, however, and when it became known that a cannon had been loaded aboard the Uncle Sam, a warrant was issued, the ship detained and searched, and the weapon removed. The Daily Alta California reported that another, smaller piece of ordnance found on the Uncle Sam at the same time was subsequently returned to its owner.³

Days later, as the Uncle Sam steamed south down Mexico’s Pacific coast for Nicaragua, no one aboard was aware that the Pacific Mail’s Golden Gate, which had sailed a day ahead of the Uncle Sam, had caught fire off Manzanillo and lay wrecked on the Mexican shore after the loss of the lives of more than two hundred passengers and $1.1 million in gold. It was a curious fact that while Vanderbilt’s competitors and partners lost a number of ships in this way, he rarely did. And unlike other steamship operators, Vanderbilt never paid a cent for insurance coverage. Instead, he relied on hands-on management, and luck. Both served him well.

Since the beginning of 1856, Lieutenant James Jamison had been stationed at the hill town of Masaya, twenty-five miles west of Granada. Jamison was enthralled by the sights and sounds of Masaya, a town of twelve thousand mostly Indian residents, which sat on a hilltop five hundred feet above Lake Masaya. The lake was the town’s only freshwater source, and Jamison watched in awe as Indian women daily climbed a winding stairway cut in the rocky hillside, carrying a full bucket of water in each hand and expertly balancing a third on their heads, without spilling a drop.

One night, at about two o’clock, several days after Jamison’s Company D settled into their barracks at Masaya, the Americans were abruptly awoken by a terrifying rumbling underfoot and the sound of detonations. Thinking the town was under artillery attack, the garrison rushed to arms. It took the local priest and the alcalde, or mayor, to assure them that there was nothing to fear—this had only been Mount Masaya, an active volcano, reminding the town that it was there.

Cholera was raging in Granada, and this time, the strain was just as deadly to the Americans as it was to the locals. Granada hospital was overflowing. Dr. Alex Jones, although now the ARN’s paymaster general, was among the volunteers helping the army’s new surgeon general, James Nott, tend to Americans and Nicaraguans alike. The epidemic soon claimed the lives of increasing numbers of Walker’s men. Among the first to go was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Gilman—the one-legged Sonora veteran who had commanded Ponciano Corral’s firing squad; Corral’s devout family and friends would have said it was God’s vengeance.

As the epidemic claimed American lives, Walker gave each victim a military funeral, complete with honor guard. Walker had recently formed a military band from a dozen Germans who had previously served in the Legitimista army, and for each victim, the band solemnly played the “Death March” as the coffin was carried from hospital to cemetery. A rifle volley followed, and fired over the grave. As the death toll mounted, Walker lamented, “The disease seemed to select those officers who were most capable and useful.”⁴ Even physician James Nott eventually fell victim to the epidemic. The military funerals became so frequent that the morbid tones of the “Death March” ringing through the streets of Granada began to sap morale, and Walker had to order the band to desist, although the military funerals and graveside volleys continued. By early February, shortly after the arrival of a new surgeon general, Israel Moses, the epidemic petered out, and men thanked their lucky stars that they had been spared.

By early February, too, Vanderbilt was again officially in complete control of the Accessory Transit Company. As expected, he had ejected Garrison, Morgan, and Ralston from the company’s board, and at the company’s January stockholders’ meeting, he had himself elected president and his friend Thomas Lord elected vice president. As expected, too, Vanderbilt did not renew the contracts that Garrison and Morgan held as the Nicaragua Line’s shipping agents. He appointed himself in their stead.

He also quickly acted on another front. At this point, Vanderbilt saw William Walker as a positive influence in Nicaragua. Walker had brought the country’s civil war to an end, and it was Walker and his filibuster army who guaranteed the peace and protected trans-Nicaragua travelers and the treasure trains. All of this meant that travelers could use the Transit Route and Vanderbilt’s steamers with confidence. So, to keep Nicaragua in a peaceful state, Vanderbilt honored the arrangement that Cornelius Garrison established with Walker to carry filibuster recruits to Nicaragua free of charge.

To Vanderbilt’s mind, an Americanized Nicaragua would be a far safer place than Panama for transiting and canal building. Vanderbilt wanted filibusters in Nicaragua, so he could not have district attorneys and deputy marshals delaying his ships and dragging passengers ashore. The matter had to be sorted out. In January, both Joseph White and Captain Tinklepaugh had been indicted by District Attorney John McKeon for their part in the Christmas Eve Northern Light affair. Claiming that the matter had arisen from a misunderstanding, both would subsequently be acquitted. Determined to ensure that government intervention in Nicaragua Line departures did not reoccur, the Commodore wrote to McKeon on February 6:

I have taken the presidency of the Transit Company as well as the agency.

I am desirous to have no difficulty with the ships.

Any mode you may point out to save trouble that may arise I will most cheerfully join you in.

Therefore, if at any time you see or hear of anything wrong, you will always find me ready to make it right so far as it is in my power.

Yours truly,

Cornelius Vanderbilt⁵

Was Vanderbilt prepared to bribe the district attorney to go easy on his steamers? His letter could be read that way. One way or another, the February sailings of Nicaragua Line ships from New York proved to be without interruption or incident.

On February 18, William Garrison arrived back in the Nicaraguan capital after his visit to New York. Charles Morgan had not hurried his response to the new Transit contract draft, making young Garrison wait weeks in Manhattan. To take advantage of the reassigned Transit charter, Morgan had to find funds and vessels for a new Nicaraguan shipping line as well as for the Transit bond and lease payments. In the end, he calculated how he and partner Cornelius Garrison could make the deal work to their best advantage, at the same time providing Nicaragua with a basic shipping service from San Francisco, New York, and New Orleans. Walker had no difficulty accepting the contract clauses added by Morgan. C. J. Macdonald had arrived from San Francisco several days earlier with Garrison’s approval of the proposed new Transit charter. Now, Walker would write, “it was decided that the blow should be struck” against Vanderbilt.⁶ All Walker had to do was convince President Rivas to revoke the old contract and sign the new one over to Edmund Randolph.

Together with best friend Randolph, who was confined to bed at Nina Irena Ohoran’s house by a protracted liver ailment, Walker drafted a revocation decree that stated that the Accessory Transit Company was losing its charter because it had failed to pay the contracted commission on profits, “falsely and fraudulently alleging that no profits were made and no commissions due.”⁷ And because the Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company, of which Vanderbilt was also once more president, had failed to build either a canal or a railroad across Nicaragua, its charter was also revoked for failing to meet its obligations. Walker’s draft decree also provided for a Nicaraguan commission of inquiry to determine the exact amount owed to the government by the companies. Once the amount of that indebtedness was ascertained, the Transit Company’s assets in Nicaragua would be offered for sale to Morgan and Garrison in settlement of that debt.

Walker then went to see President Rivas and Minister General Don Fermin Ferrer at Government House, to finally broach the subject of the revocation of the Transit Company’s contract. To Walker’s relief, both Rivas and Ferrer were strongly in favor of the idea, and the president signed the decree depriving Cornelius Vanderbilt of his charter, “not only without hesitation but with undisguised pleasure,” Walker would note.⁸ But Walker was surprised to meet angry resistance from Rivas when he presented the president with a second decree, which reassigned the Transit charter to Randolph and his syndicate.

The discussion became an argument, but not one in which Walker would raise his voice. The dispute continued into the night, and Walker returned to his quarters at the Vieja house with the matter unresolved. Next morning, a resolute General Walker again crossed the plaza to the president’s office and resumed the discussion. Using his powers of reason and considerable eloquence, the unrelenting Walker was able to eventually talk the emotional Don Patricio into seeing his point of view. Still, the president’s signature on the reassignment decree was obtained “with much difficulty,” and even then only after Walker agreed to remove some of the clauses that Morgan and Garrison had asked for. Finally, on February 19, Walker walked out of the president’s office with the signed second decree in his hand. It was done. The Transit contract and Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal charter had both been taken from Vanderbilt and handed to his archenemies Morgan and Garrison.

Still, Walker and his colleagues agreed, the changeover must be handled with care and discretion, to give Morgan and Garrison as much time as possible to prepare while Vanderbilt was off guard. There was also another reason to delay. An aristocratic young Cuban, F. A. Laine, had recently been in Granada for discussions with Walker. Laine was the agent of Domingo de Goicuria, a wealthy Cuban involved in Narciso Lopez’s failed bid to throw the Spanish out of Cuba. Goicuria, who was living in exile in New Orleans, had proposed to Walker, via Laine, that he would bring 250 men from the United States to serve under Walker. He had also undertaken to use his own money to buy arms, uniforms, and footwear for Walker’s troops. In return, Walker would use his men and resources to help Goicuria seize power in Cuba once Walker had consolidated his power in Nicaragua.

Laine had returned to New Orleans with a memorandum of agreement to this effect signed by Walker. Goicuria and his 250 recruits would sail from New Orleans aboard the Nicaragua Line’s Prometheus when the steamer made its scheduled departure in early March. Walker fully expected that, should word of the loss of the Transit charter reach Cornelius Vanderbilt in New York before the Prometheus sailed, Vanderbilt would cancel the present arrangement under which Goicuria and his 250 men would sail to Nicaragua free of charge. There was even a possibility that Vanderbilt would cancel the sailing. A delay in the revocation and reassignment announcement would mean that the Prometheus would sail before Vanderbilt could act, bringing Goicuria and his men to Nicaragua at Vanderbilt’s expense.

So, Walker waited. The decrees would be published in Nicaragua in the fourth week of February. In the meantime, the new Morgan and Garrison Line, as it would be commonly known, would prepare to take over the Nicaragua run. Morgan would transfer two of his own ships up to New York from the Gulf of Mexico, where they were currently on the New Orleans-Havana-Santa Cruz run, which Morgan dominated. One of these ships, the SS Orizaba, would serve the New York-Greytown route, the other, the SS Tennessee, would take over the New York-New Orleans-Greytown run currently served by the Prometheus.

Morgan and Garrison had no way of immediately servicing the San Francisco-San Juan del Sur route but seemed confident that Vanderbilt’s greed, and his obligation to Transit Company stockholders, would cause him to keep ships on the run to Nicaragua from San Francisco, New York, and New Orleans. His competitors probably expected him to offer spirited competition on the route, for there was nothing to stop him from dropping passengers at Greytown and San Juan del Sur, where they would pay the Morgan-Garrison concern the thirty-five dollars it cost to travel across Nicaragua by the river and lake steamers and stagecoaches. The plan was, of course, to shut Vanderbilt out of Nicaragua altogether over time, and Morgan intended to secure another two ships for the Nicaragua service within a few months. Once he was certain of passenger volumes, he could order new ships from Jacob Westervelt, his favorite New York shipbuilder.

Meanwhile, on publication of the decrees, the Rivas government would notify Transit Company manager Cortlandt Cushing that all Transit Company assets in the country were forthwith seized by the government and that he was out of a job. Those assets would be vested in the care of Joseph N. Scott, the company’s former ace lake steamer captain, who went to work for the new Morgan and Garrison operation. Most other former company staff would also be retained by Morgan and Garrison.

With the takeover of the Transit Company’s operation on track, Walker put Vanderbilt to the back of his mind and turned to political affairs—as he must, for there were ominous rumblings coming from both north and south of the border.