Tycoon's War

To lead his delegation, Walker chose Louis Schlessinger, a recent arrival from New York. Schlessinger had “come to Nicaragua with excellent recommendations from people of repute.”² He had told Walker he was a Hungarian national who served as a major in the forces of Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth, who in 1848-1849 had led a failed uprising against Austrian rule of Hungary. Schlessinger had even written about his adventures for the Atlantic Monthly, describing himself as one of the military refugees from the surrender of the fortress of Comorn, the last stronghold of the Hungarian revolutionaries.

Kossuth’s revolution had been a cause célèbre for romantics and revolutionaries the world over. “I wish to heaven I had my liberty,” Irish political prisoner Thomas Meagher had written enviously in 1849 from the British penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land—today’s Tasmania—in Australia. “I’d be off to join the beggars by the first ship.”³ William Walker had also been an ardent admirer of Kossuth and his revolutionaries, writing editorials in support of them in the New Orleans Crescent. Thomas Meagher, who was to gain fame as the commander of the U.S. Army’s Irish Brigade during the U.S. Civil War and who would, by 1857, be a vocal supporter of William Walker, had seen the exiled Hungarian revolutionaries as romantic figures: “They walk the world in glory, awakening everywhere the noblest sympathies, renewing amongst men the high-toned sentiments of the old heroic days.”⁴ Walker, himself schooled on the legends of knights of old, courtesy of the novels of Sir Walker Scott, was of the same mind. To have one of Kossuth’s officers serving under him no doubt gave him quite a thrill.

Schlessinger’s ambassadorial qualifications included the fact he spoke four languages. Walker also felt that Schlessinger possessed tact and the right bearing for an envoy. To accompany the “special commissioner,” Walker selected American ARN officer Captain W. A. Sutter and Colonel Manuel Arguello—the same Colonel Arguello who had fought against Walker at the Battle of Rivas the previous June. Since the end of the war, Arguello had served in a senior Nicaraguan government civil post—his appointment had sponsored Democratico Minister Buenaventura Selva’s resignation from the cabinet. Like Julius Caesar, Walker attempted to act magnanimously toward former enemies and welcomed them into his fold. He had found former foe Arguello a conscientious administrator and hoped that since Arguello was a Legitimista, the man might “remove prejudices” when the deputation dealt with Costa Rica’s Legitimista government.⁵ As he headed south, Schlessinger carried a document from Walker that set out “conciliatory terms for a treaty concerning the proper conventions for the Federation of Central American States.”⁶

Nineteen days after leaving Granada, Special Commissioner Schlessinger was sitting with his two colleagues, bored and frustrated, in Costa Rica’s Pacific port of Puntarenas. On reaching the Costa Rican town of Liberia, Schlessinger had been forced by local authorities to hand over the Walker proposal. While the document was taken by the Costa Ricans to their capital, San José, together with a letter from Schlessinger asking Foreign Minister Bernado Calvo for a date for a meeting, Schlessinger and his companions had been escorted down to Puntarenas, fifty miles west of San José, to await a response.

Now, a party of grim-faced Costa Rican officials headed by Colonel Rudesindo Guardia, military governor of Puntarenas, strode into the room. As the Walker deputation came to their feet, Colonel Guardia thrust Walker’s document at Schlessinger. The proposals, Guardia told the delegates, were wholly unacceptable. Guardia had orders to expel the Nicaraguan delegation from the country on the first vessel leaving port. But as Schlessinger and Sutter were hustled away, the Legitimista member of the party, Manuel Arguello, departed with Colonel Guardia—Arguello had defected to the Costa Ricans.

On the first day of March, President Juan Rafael Mora stood before the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica in San José. Mora had celebrated his forty-second birthday only several weeks before. Elected to the Costa Rican presidency in 1849 at the age of just thirty-five, he had been re-elected four years later. Like Walker, Mora was short; the Costa Ricans had nicknamed him “Don Juanito,” or “Mr. Little John.” Mora and his brothers were rich coffee merchants. The economy of tiny Costa Rica was built on its coffee exports to the world, which had created a ruling class of wealthy coffee barons like Don Juanito. Mora was a popular ruler. During his term in office, he had done much for the country’s poorer barefoot farmers, including extending voting rights to many Costa Ricans who had previously been excluded by land ownership provisions. He had erected Costa Rica’s parliament building and established its first university, the Universidad de Santo Tomás.

For four days the Legislative Assembly had met in extraordinary session to discuss the situation in Nicaragua, and for four days Mora pushed his countrymen toward a confrontation with William Walker. Apart from the lancers of the Presidential Honor Guard, Costa Rica had no standing army. That situation was about to change. Ever since his November declaration that Walker and his Yankee filibusters must be thrown out of Central America, Mora had been collecting weapons, buying gunpowder, and turning lead into shot. And now, the president convinced the assembly to vote him absolute power and to authorize him to raise a war loan of a hundred thousand pesos to permit him to conscript, arm, and maintain an army of nine thousand men—one in every twelve Costa Ricans. He also received the assembly’s authority to lead that army into Nicaragua.

“We do not go to contend for a piece of land,” he told his countrymen, “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.”⁷ With dark, intense eyes, the little president looked around the assembly and then stormed dramatically, “To arms! The moment has arrived. We march into Nicaragua to destroy this impious Falange which has reduced the people to oppressive slavery. We march to fight for the liberty of every man!”⁸

As the members of the assembly burst into riotous applause and cheers, the president called for a vote on a final motion. On Saturday, March 1, 1856, the parliament of Costa Rica voted to declare war on President Patricio Rivas of Nicaragua and on William Walker and his Yankee filibusters.

On March 12, the news reached New York City that the Nicaraguan government of Patricio Rivas had canceled the charters of both the Accessory Transit Company and the Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company. Vanderbilt had exploded with rage and indignation. Dropping everything, he had immediately set off for the federal capital. Now Vanderbilt slammed a copy of the revocation decree down on the desk in front of the secretary of state. “One William Walker has interfered with my American property, Marcy!” he roared, before demanding redress by the U.S. government.⁹

Secretary Marcy, calm and deliberate, conducted the Commodore to a seat, then invited Vanderbilt to explain the cause of his concern. And in language full of expletives, Vanderbilt detailed how the filibuster Walker had conspired with Vanderbilt’s commercial enemies Morgan and Garrison to deprive him of his lawful rights in Nicaragua. Locking his fingers, Marcy sat back and listened as the magnate raged. Marcy, like the New York Times, was acquainted with the “well-known abuses and shortcomings” in the way the Transit Company had dealt with the Nicaraguan government in the past. And perhaps also like the Times, Secretary Marcy believed that the Nicaraguan authorities had previously displayed a “want of proper spirit” and should have long ago “visited with forfeiture” the assets of the Transit Company as retribution for those abuses and shortcomings.¹⁰

In fact, Marcy saw Vanderbilt’s reaction as hypocritical. “I can see no valid claim to haste on the part of you Transit people,” he said, once the Commodore had vented his anger, “as you only recently interfered with the action of the Administration against the young filibuster.”¹¹

As Vanderbilt knew, Marcy was talking about the Northern Light incident the previous December. Vanderbilt replied that he had not been president of the Transit Company at that time so could not answer for what the company’s officials did then.

Marcy nodded slowly. He knew that although Vanderbilt did not have the title of president of the company at that time, he had been in control of the company in December and was merely waiting for the January stockholders’ meeting to formally vote him back into the president’s chair before he took a public role. It was laughable that Vanderbilt expected Marcy to believe otherwise. It was also laughable that in December, Vanderbilt was all for allowing filibuster recruits to sail on his ships to join Walker in Nicaragua, in opposition to the secretary of state’s stance, and was still of that view as recently as February, when he wrote to District Attorney McKeon seeking his cooperation. And yet, here was Vanderbilt now, demanding that the government act against Walker—only after Walker’s actions had hurt him financially.

Despite being riled by Vanderbilt’s sudden and mercenary change of tune, Marcy could not deny that he himself would like nothing better than to see Walker removed from Central America. So, the secretary of state promised the Commodore that he would look into the matter. Despite that promise, Vanderbilt left the State Department dissatisfied and determined to ramp up the pressure on William Walker.

The next day, Vanderbilt met with British ambassador John Crampton and urged the British government to prevent Morgan and Garrison from unloading ocean steamer passengers at Greytown, effectively snuffing out their Transit Company trade. Vanderbilt was aware that Walker was a thorn in the side of the British government, which was particularly worried that he would use his filibuster troops to occupy Greytown and return it and the Mosquito Coast to Nicaraguan control. The ambassador was sympathetic to Vanderbilt’s approach, agreeing that Her Majesty’s officers at Greytown could “materially contribute, by protecting American property.”¹² Crampton also agreed to ask his government to permanently station a warship at Greytown and informed Vanderbilt that a representative of the Transit Company duly authorized by Vanderbilt could “ask for the assistance of the commander of any man-of-war in Her Britannic Majesty’s navy in the port.”¹³ Now Vanderbilt was getting somewhere.

In quick succession, the Commodore also met with the Washington ambassadors of the Central American states of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and the ambassador of Colombia (known as New Granada until 1886)—which then included Panama. He also met with the ambassadors of the South American nations Chile, Peru, and Brazil. The Costa Rican ambassador, Don Felipe Molina, would later write a detailed report of his meeting with Vanderbilt, for President Mora. As Vanderbilt did with each ambassador, he urged the Costa Rican envoy to motivate his government to act against Walker in Nicaragua.

Vanderbilt had clearly received information direct from Nicaragua, for, during his meeting with the Costa Rican ambassador, he informed Molina that Walker had recently introduced a new Nicaraguan flag of his own design. That flag, the Commodore said, featured five horizontal blue stripes on a white background, with a five-pointed red star in the center. This star, apparently designed in emulation of the lone star on the flag of Texas, had, according to Vanderbilt, spawned a motto of Walker’s creation: “Five or none.” This motto, said Vanderbilt, represented Walker’s militant ambitions for Central America—he planned to conquer all five nations and make himself their emperor. Five nations, or none. ¹⁴

When Vanderbilt set off back to New York, it was still “with some misgivings.” ¹⁵ While he had received assurances from the Latin American diplomats that their governments would take a hostile view of Walker and his filibusters, and while they had been warm to his offer of assistance to those governments that took action against Walker, there was no guarantee that any of them would have the gumption to act.