NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 The Vanderbilt News, 1857, company newspaper, quoted in Carr, The World and William Walker.
2 Klepper and Gunther, The Wealthy 100.
3 New York Daily Tribune, March 23, 1878.
4 “Diplomatic and Consular Posts, 1781-1997,” and “Department Personnel, 1781-1991,” accessed at www.state.gov, under “State Department History.”
5 Croffut, The Vanderbilts.
6 Howden Smith, Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of American Achievement.
7 Croffut, The Vanderbilts.
8 Howden Smith, Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of American Achievement.
9 Carr, The World and William Walker.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
13 Ibid.
14 Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts.
15 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
16 Palmerston to Abbot Lawrence, December 24, 1851, confirmed that he had issued this instruction to Green on October 31. UK Foreign Office, FO 5/538.
17 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
 
CHAPTER 1 : GUN- BARREL DIPLOMACY
1 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
2 Croffut, The Vanderbilts.
3 Crook, General George Crook.
4 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
5 Ibid., description by Peter Stout, a passenger in the first Transit party, who passed this way six months later, in July 1851.
6 Passenger list published in New Orleans Daily Picayune, June 16, 1850.
7 Crook, General George Crook.
8 Shuck, Historical Abstract of San Francisco, gives details of all the Californian duels fought by Walker, Graham, and Nugent described here.
9 Ibid.
10 New York Daily Times, December 2, 1851.
11 James Green to Lord Palmerston, January 6, 1852.
12 New York Daily Times, December 2, 1851.
13 Ibid.
14 Robert Coates to James Green, undated. Quoted in Rodriguez, “The Prometheus and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.”
15 James Green to William Fead, January 9, 1852, FO 53/30.
16 Admiralty, Captains’ Logs, ADM 53/5295, July 2, 1851, to June 4, 1852; ADM 53/5296, June 5, 1852 to July 3, 1852.
17 New York Daily Times, December 2, 1851.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
21 All times shown have been taken from the log of the Express: Admiralty, Captains’ Logs.
22 New York Daily Times, December 2, 1851.
23 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
24 New York Daily Times, January 31, 1852.
 
CHAPTER 2 : DOWN BUT NOT OUT
1 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
2 Choules, The Cruise of the Steam Yacht North Star.
3 Croffut, The Vanderbilts.
4 The figures for 1854, a year when passenger numbers suffered a decline due to the Cyane incident, were 13,128 westbound passengers and 10,461 eastbound.
5 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
6 Antonio Campuzano to Manuel Maria Gandara, July 3, 1853. Secretaria de Relacions Exteriores, Paquete 8, Mexico.
7 Warren, Dust and Foam.
8 Walker, The War in Nicaragua.
9 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Walker, The War in Nicaragua.
13 Daily Alta California, December 8, 1853.
14 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
15 Daily Alta California, January 12, 1853.
16 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
17 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
18 Walker, The War in Nicaragua.
19 Ibid.
20 Carr, The World and William Walker.
21 New York State Assembly, 90th sess., 1867, II, Doc. 19.
22 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
 
CHAPTER 3 : ENTER THE COLONEL
1 Some accounts give his name as Livingstone.
2 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
3 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
7 Doubleday’s quote is from ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
10 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
11 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
12 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 4 : LANDING BEHIND ENEMY LINES
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua; and Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
2 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
3 Ibid.
4 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
5 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
6 Ibid.
7 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
8 Ibid.
9 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
10 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
11 Ibid. In Walker’s briefer account, there was no sentry.
12 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
16 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
17 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
 
CHAPTER 5 : THE BATTLE OF RIVAS
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
3 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
4 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
8 Ibid.
9 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
10 Ibid.
11 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
12 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
13 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
14 Ibid.
15 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
16 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
17 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
18 Daily Alta California, September 3, 1851.
19 Crook, General George Crook.
20 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua. Dewey, accused of burning down the barracks in San Juan del Sur that night, was shot the next day on Walker’s orders.
24 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
25 Ibid.
26 Bell, Early Times in Southern California.
27 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
 
CHAPTER 6 : VICTORY AT LA VIRGEN
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
3 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
4 Ibid.
5 In 1850, an act proposed in the California legislature to ban Mexicans from the state was actually called the Greasers Act.
6 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.; the entire exchange is recorded by Doubleday.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
13 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
14 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
15 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
 
CHAPTER 7 : WALKER’ S SECRET PLAN
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
6 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
7 Miller, The Complete Poetical Works.
8 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
9 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
10 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
11 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
12 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
13 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 8 : TAKING GRANADA
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Ibid.
3 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, February 21, 1857.
4 Walker, War in Nicaragua. Walker spelled the priest’s name Vigil, but all other sources give it as Vijil.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
CHAPTER 9 : THE WALKER WAY
1 Daily Alta California, January 12, 1853.
2 Unless otherwise noted, all quotes in this chapter are from Walker, War in Nicaragua.
3 Absalom, “Experience of Samuel Absalom, Filibuster.”
4 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
5 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
 
CHAPTER 10 : CLOSING IN ON THE PRIZE
1 Croffut, The Vanderbilts.
2 Medberry, Men and Mysteries of Wall Street.
3 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
4 Ibid.
5 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
6 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
11 Joseph S. Fowler, introduction to Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians, by J. H. Wheeler (Columbus, OH: Columbus Printing, 1884).
12 Ibid.
13 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
14 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 11 : ON A COLLISION COURSE
1 Daily Alta California, May 1, 1855.
2 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
3 Register Book, New Orleans Agency of the Nicaraguan Emigration Company, Supreme Government of the Republic of Nicaragua, in Callender I. Fayssoux Collection of William Walker Papers. University of Mississippi Libraries.
4 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
5 Bell, Early Times in Southern California.
6 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
7 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
8 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
9 Ibid.
10 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
 
CHAPTER 12 : BLINDSIDING VANDERBILT
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Carr, The World and William Walker.
3 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Bell, Early Times in Southern California.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Daily Alta California, December 26, 1850, reported the arrival of twenty-three aboard the barque JS Jeserum in San Francisco and recounted the story of the Overland Express, as told by one of them.
10 In a list of the French party from New York, the New Orleans Daily Picayune, May 26 included a “Sylvester Spencer.” It’s probable this was Sylvanus Spencer.
11 New York Herald, December 23, 1855.
12 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
13 New York Tribune, December 25, 1855.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 New York Morning Express, December 26, 1855.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Daily Alta California, January 20, 1856.
 
CHAPTER 13 : THE GATHERING STORM
1 Daily Alta California, January 3, 1856.
2 Ibid.
3 Daily Alta California, January 6, 1856.
4 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
5 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
6 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 14 : GOING TO WA R WITH WALKER
1 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
2 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
3 Thomas Meagher to Smith O’Brien, December 1849, in Heart of Exile, by P. Adam-Smith (Melbourne: Nelson, 1986).
4 According to Putnam’s Monthly, vol. 9, April 1857, p. 432, Meagher became a supporter of Walker, with a letter from him being read out at a New York City public meeting in early 1857 in which the Irishman called for “instant aid” to be sent to the embattled Walker in Nicaragua.
5 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
6 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, March 1856.
7 Greene, Filibuster.
8 Commission de Investigacion Historica de la Campana 1856-1857.
9 New York Daily Times, June 10, 1856.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Thomas Lord to Hosea Birdsall, April 8, 1856, quoted in Walker, War in Nicaragua.
13 Ibid.
14 Montufar, Walker en Centro America; and Bolanos-Geyer, Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny.
15 New York Daily Times, June 10, 1856.
CHAPTER 15 : THE BATTLE OF SANTA ROSA
1 Carr, The World and William Walker.
2 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 16: COURTS-MARTIAL AND FIRING SQUADS
1 Bell, Early Times in Southern California.
2 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 New York Daily Times, April 30, 1856.
6 Williams lived to old age, becoming a leading journalist and author.
7 Manfut, History of Nicaragua.
8 Ibid.
9 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
10 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 17 : A KILLING OR TWO
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
3 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 New York Daily Times, March 6, 1856.
8 Carr, The World and William Walker.
9 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
10 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
11 New York Daily Times, April 9, 1859.
12 New York Herald, March 17, 1856.
13 New York Daily Times, April 9, 1856.
14 Nashville Gazette, June 13, 1856.
15 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
16 New York Daily Times, April 30, 1856.
17 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
18 New York Daily Times, April 30, 1856.
 
CHAPTER 18 : THE SECOND BATTLE OF RIVAS
1 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
2 Walker, War in Nicaragua, says that there was only one cannon. Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua, says two and is backed up by Costa Rican sources.
3 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
4 Ibid.
5 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
6 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua. Walker, War in Nicaragua, does not mention this incident, but Montufar, Walker en Centro America, gives full details, and Jamison covers it briefly.
7 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
13 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
14 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
15 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
16 Melendez-Obando and Bolonas-Zamora, Luis Pacheco Bertosa.
17 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
18 Winters sailed from New York to Nicaragua on the SS Star of the West on May 20, 1854.
19 Myron Veeder sailed from New York to Nicaragua aboard the SS Prometheus on January 5, 1852.
20 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
 
CHAPTER 19 : PRESIDENT WALKER
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Carr, The World and William Walker.
6 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
7 Ibid.
8 Nashville Gazette, June 13, 1856.
9 Carr, The World and William Walker.
10 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
11 New York Daily Times, June 10, 1856.
12 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
13 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
14 Carr, The World and William Walker.
15 Palmerston to Clarendon, December 31, 1857, in Van Alstyne, “Anglo-American Relations.”
16 Carr, The World and William Walker.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
20 Carr, The World and William Walker.
21 Fowler, Introduction, Wheeler, Reminiscences and Memoirs.
22 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
23 Ibid.
24 Spencer description based on a painting of his father.
25 Lacayo, “The National War.”
26 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
27 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
28 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
 
CHAPTER 20 : BATTLES ON ALL FRONTS
1 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 New York Daily Times, June 10, 1856.
5 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
6 Ibid.
7 New York Daily Times, June 10, 1856.
8 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Howden Smith: An Epic of American Achievement.
13 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
14 Howden Smith: An Epic of American Achievement.
15 Bolanos-Geyer; Manfut.
16 Manfut, History of Nicaragua.
17 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
18 Ibid.
19 Manfut, History of Nicaragua.
20 Ibid.
21 While Walker, War in Nicaragua, felt the battle was only brief, Manfut and Bolanos-Geyer, quoting Colonel Estrada, say it lasted much of the morning.
22 Manfut, History of Nicaragua.
23 United States Democratic Review, July 1857.
24 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
 
CHAPTER 21 : NEW BATTLEGROUNDS
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Ibid.
3 Carr, The World and William Walker.
4 Andres Castro recovered from his wound, married his nurse, and bought a house near Managua hospital. In his forties, Castro was killed in a bar fight.
5 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
6 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
7 Carr, The World and William Walker.
8 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
9 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
10 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
CHAPTER 22 : WHEELING AND DEALING
1 Gordon, Scarlet Woman of Wall Street.
2 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
3 McCabe, Great Fortunes.
4 Howden Smith, An Epic of American Achievement.
5 Ibid.
6 Carr, The World and William Walker.
7 Croffut, The Vanderbilts.
8 Carr, The World and William Walker.
9 Ibid.
10 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt. As a result of the falling out between Walker and Goicuria, most of the fifty Cuban fighters taken to Nicaragua by Goicuria deserted Walker’s ranks; the Cuban Guard was never heard of again.
11 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
12 Putnam’s Monthly, April 1857, p. 425.
13 Ibid.
14 Geron, Fatal Corner.
15 Montufar, Walker en Centro America.
16 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 23 : HERE WAS GRANADA
1 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
5 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
6 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
7 Putnam’s Monthly, April 1857.
8 Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua.
 
CHAPTER 24: CLOSING NICARAGUA’S BACK DOOR
1 That cell would nave been at Fort San Carlos.
2 Carr, The World and William Walker.
3 New York Herald, December 25, 1856.
4 Absalom, “Experience of Samuel Absalom, Filibuster.”
5 Miller, Complete Poetical Works.
 
CHAPTER 25 : OPERATION SAN JUAN
1 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
2 Walker, War in Nicaragua, says the number was ten, but Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua, who was on the spot, put the number at twenty.
3 Oliphant, Patriots & Filibusters.
4 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
5 Ibid.
6 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
7 Absalom, “Experience of Samuel Absalom, Filibuster.”
8 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
9 New York Daily Times, February 23, 1857.
10 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
11 Ibid.
12 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
13 Ibid.
14 Carr, The World and William Walker.
15 Sugden, Nelson.
16 Hanna and Hanna, Florida’s Golden Sands.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 New York Herald, March 12, 1857.
20 Robinson, Latin America.
21 Hanna and Hanna, Florida’s Golden Sands.
22 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
23 Ibid.
 
CHAPTER 26 : TO THE VICTOR, THE SPOILS
1 New York Herald, March 17, 1857.
2 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid. says more than one ton of gunpowder; Sites, New York Herald, March 17, 1857, said two tons.
5 New York Herald, March 17, 1857.
6 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
7 Ibid.
8 New York Herald, April 17, 1857.
9 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
10 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
11 Doubleday, Filibuster War in Nicaragua.
12 New York Herald, April 17, 1857.
13 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
14 Carr, The World and William Walker.
15 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
16 Ibid.
17 Carr, The World and William Walker.
18 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
19 Carr, The World and William Walker.
20 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Atlantic Monthly, April 1858.
24 Carr, The World and William Walker.
25 Frederick K. Chatard to William Seton, July 20, 1857, Chatard Papers, II-1-a.
26 Carr, The World and William Walker.
27 Norvell Walker disappeared overboard while sailing from Panama to the United States via Cuba in mid-1857.
28 Cauty returned to England, where he married in 1859. The 1881 British Census found Cauty in London. Aged fifty-five, he was listed as an unemployed clerk, having long ago spent the spoils from his Nicaraguan exploit.
29 Carr, The World and William Walker.
30 Ibid.
31 A. J. de Yrisarri to Secretary Cass, December 13, 1857, reprinted in New York Daily Times, January 31, 1858.
32 Atlantic Monthly, April 1858.
33 Carr, The World and William Walker.
 
CHAPTER 27 : THE SURRENDER
1 Carr, The World and William Walker.
2 Yrisarri to Cass, December 13, 1857.
3 Carr, The World and William Walker.
4 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
 
EPILOGUE
1 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt.
2 Walker, War in Nicaragua.
3 Ibid.
4 Carr, The World and William Walker.
5 Ibid.
6 Robinson, Latin America.
7 Howden Smith: An Epic of American Achievement.
8 Renehan, Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
9 Ibid.