William Walker (filibuster)
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William Walker (May 8, 1824Template:SndSeptember 12, 1860) was an American physician, lawyer, journalist, and mercenary. In the era of the expansion of the United States, driven by the doctrine of "manifest destiny", Walker organized unauthorized military expeditions into Mexico and Central America with the intention of establishing colonies. Such an enterprise was known at the time as "filibustering".
After settling in California, motivated by an earlier filibustering project of Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon, Walker attempted in 1853–54 to take Baja California and Sonora. He declared those territories to be an independent Republic of Sonora, but he was soon driven back to California by the Mexican forces. Walker then went to Nicaragua in 1855 as leader of a mercenary army employed by the Nicaraguan Democratic Party in its civil war against the Legitimists. He took control of the Nicaraguan government and in July 1856 set himself up as the country's president.<ref name="mined">Template:Cite web</ref>
Walker's regime was recognized as the legitimate government of Nicaragua by US President Franklin Pierce, and it initially enjoyed the support of some important sectors within Nicaraguan society.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, Walker antagonized the powerful Wall Street tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt by expropriating Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company, which operated one of the main routes for the transport of passengers going from New York City to San Francisco. The British Empire saw Walker as a threat to its interests in the possible construction of a Nicaragua Canal. As ruler of Nicaragua, Walker re-legalized slavery, although this measure was never enforced, and threatened the independence of neighboring Central American republics. A military coalition led by Costa Rica defeated Walker and forced him to resign the presidency of Nicaragua on May 1, 1857.<ref>Gobernantes de Nicaragua: William Walker. Ministerio de Educacion de Nicaragua (Nicaragua Ministry of Education).</ref>
Walker tried to re-launch his filibustering project and sought renewed support from pro-slavery forces in the Southern United States on the eve of the American Civil War. In 1860, he published a book titled The War in Nicaragua, which promoted his efforts to conquer Central America in order to expand slavery geographically. That year, he returned to Central America, where the Royal Navy arrested him and handed him to the government of Honduras, which executed him.
Early life
William Walker was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1824 to James Walker and his wife Mary Norvell. His father was an English settler.Template:Sfn His mother was the daughter of Lipscomb Norvell, an American Revolutionary War officer from Virginia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> One of Walker's maternal uncles was John Norvell, a U.S. Senator from Michigan and founder of The Philadelphia Inquirer.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Walker was engaged to Ellen Martin, but she died of yellow fever before they could be married,Template:Sfn and he died without children.
Walker graduated summa cum laude from the University of Nashville at the age of 14.<ref name="Norvell">Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1843, at the age of 19, he received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.<ref name="Norvell"/> Walker then continued his medical studies at Edinburgh<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and Heidelberg. He practiced medicine briefly in Philadelphia, but soon moved to New Orleans where he studied law privately.<ref name="sfmuseum">Template:Cite web</ref>
Walker practiced law for a short time, then quit to become co-owner and editor of the New Orleans Crescent newspaper. In 1849, he moved to San Francisco, where he worked as editor of the San Francisco Herald and fought three duels; he was wounded in two of them. Walker then conceived the idea of conquering vast regions of Central America and creating new slave states to join those already part of the Union.<ref>McPherson, James M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 114Template:ISBN?</ref> These campaigns were known as filibustering, or freebooting, and were supported by the Southern expansionist secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Duel with William Hicks Graham
Walker gained national attention by dueling with law clerk William Hicks Graham on January 12, 1851.<ref>Thrapp, Dan L. Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography: G-O. University of Nebraska Pr; Auflage: Reprint (August 1991). p. 578. Template:ISBN</ref> Walker criticized Graham and his colleagues in the Herald, which angered Graham and prompted him to challenge Walker to a duel.<ref>Rosa, Joseph G. Age of the Gunfighter: Men and Weapons on the Frontier, 1840–1900. University of Oklahoma Press; 1st edition (September 15, 1995) p. 27. Template:ISBN</ref> Graham was a notorious gunman, having taken part in a number of duels and shootouts in the Old West. Walker, on the other hand, had experience dueling with single-shot pistols at one time, but his duel with Graham was fought with revolvers.<ref name="Chamberlain">Chamberlain, Ryan. Pistols, Politics and the Press: Dueling in 19th Century American Journalism. McFarland (2008). p. 92. Template:ISBN</ref>
The combatants met at Mission Dolores, where each was given a Colt Dragoon with five shots. They stood face to face at ten paces, and each aimed and fired at the signal of a referee. Graham managed to fire two bullets, hitting Walker in his pantaloons and his thigh, seriously wounding him. Walker tried a number of times to shoot his weapon, but he failed to land even a single shot and Graham was left unscathed. The duel ended when Walker conceded. Graham was arrested but was quickly released. The duel was recorded in The Daily Alta California.<ref name="Chamberlain" />
Invasion of Mexico
After a failed attempt to invade the Mexican Province of Sonora from the New Mexico Territory,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the summer of 1853, Walker traveled to Guaymas in Mexico, seeking a grant from the Mexican government to establish a colony. He proposed that his colony would serve as a fortified frontier, protecting U.S. soil from Indian raids. Mexico refused, and Walker returned to San Francisco determined to obtain his colony regardless of Mexico's position.Template:Sfn<ref>James Mitchell Clarke, "Antonio Melendrez: Nemesis of William Walker in Baja California". California Historical Society Quarterly 12.4 (1933): 318–322. Template:JSTOR.</ref> He began recruiting American supporters of slavery and of the Manifest Destiny doctrine, mostly inhabitants of Tennessee and Kentucky. Walker's plans then expanded from forming a buffer colony to establishing an independent Republic of Sonora, which might eventually take its place as a part of the Union (as the Republic of Texas had done in 1845). He funded his project by "selling scrips which were redeemable in lands of Sonora".<ref name="sfmuseum"/>

On October 15, 1853, Walker set out with forty-five men to conquer the Mexican territories of Baja California Territory and Sonora State. He succeeded in capturing La Paz, the capital of sparsely populated Baja California, which he declared the capital of a new "Republic of Lower California" (declared November 3, 1853), with himself as president and his former law partner, Henry P. Watkins,<ref name="HistoryNet">Template:Cite web</ref> as vice president. Walker then put the region under the laws of the American state of Louisiana, which made slavery legal.<ref name="HistoryNet"/> Whether Walker at this stage intended to tie his filibustering expedition to the cause of slavery is a matter of dispute.Template:Sfn
Fearful of attacks by Mexico, Walker moved his headquarters twice over the next three months, first to Cabo San Lucas, and then further north to Ensenada to maintain a more secure base of operations. Although he never gained control of Sonora, he pronounced Baja California part of the larger Republic of Sonora.<ref name="sfmuseum"/> Lack of supplies, severe aridity of Baja California and strong resistance by the Mexican government quickly forced Walker to retreat.<ref name="HistoryNet"/>
Back in California, Walker was indicted by a federal grand jury for waging an illegal war in violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794. However, in the era of Manifest Destiny, Walker's filibustering project had popular support in the southern and western U.S. Walker was tried before Judge I. S. K. Ogier in the US District Court for the Southern District of California. Although two of Walker's associates had already been convicted of similar charges and Judge Ogier summarized the evidence against Walker for the jury, the jury deliberated for only eight minutes before acquitting Walker.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Invasion of Nicaragua
Since there was no inter-oceanic route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the time, and the transcontinental railway did not yet exist, a major trade route between New York City and San Francisco ran through southern Nicaragua. Ships from New York entered the San Juan River from the Atlantic and sailed across Lake Nicaragua. People and goods were then transported by stagecoach across a narrow strip of land near the city of Rivas, before reaching the Pacific and ships to San Francisco. The commercial exploitation of this route had been granted by Nicaragua to the Accessory Transit Company, controlled by shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
In 1854, a civil war erupted in Nicaragua between the Legitimist Party (also called the Conservative Party), based in the city of Granada, and the Democratic Party (also called the Liberal Party), based in León. The Democratic Party sought military support from Walker who, to circumvent U.S. neutrality laws, obtained a contract from Democratic president Francisco Castellón to bring as many as three hundred "colonists" to Nicaragua. These mercenaries received the right to bear arms in the service of the Democratic government. Walker sailed from San Francisco on May 3, 1855,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> with approximately sixty men. Upon landing, the force was reinforced by 110 locals.Template:Sfn<ref>Walker, p. 42</ref> With Walker's expeditionary force was the well-known explorer and journalist Charles Wilkins Webber, as well as Belgian-born adventurer Charles Frederick Henningsen, a veteran of the First Carlist War, the Hungarian Revolution, and the war in Circassia.Template:Sfn Besides Henningsen, three members of Walker's forces who became Confederate officers were Birkett D. Fry, Robert C. Tyler, and Chatham Roberdeau Wheat.
With Castellón's consent, Walker attacked the Legitimists in Rivas, near the trans-isthmian route. He was driven off, but not without inflicting heavy casualties. In this First Battle of Rivas, a schoolteacher called Enmanuel Mongalo y Rubio (1834–1872) burned the Filibuster headquarters. On September 3, during the Battle of La Virgen, Walker defeated the Legitimist army.Template:Sfn On October 13, he conquered Granada and took effective control of the country. Initially, as commander of the army, Walker ruled Nicaragua through provisional President Patricio Rivas.Template:Sfn U.S. President Franklin Pierce recognized Walker's regime as the legitimate government of Nicaragua on May 20, 1856,<ref>McPherson p. 112</ref> and on June 3 the Democratic national convention expressed support of the effort to "regenerate" Nicaragua.<ref name="EB1911">Template:Cite EB1911</ref> However, Walker's first ambassadorial appointment, Colonel Parker H. French, was refused recognition.Template:Sfn On September 22, Walker repealed Nicaraguan laws prohibiting slavery, in an attempt to gain support from the Southern states.<ref name="EB1911"/>
Walker's actions in the region caused concern in neighboring countries and potential U.S. and European investors who feared he would pursue further military conquests in Central America. C. K. Garrison and Charles Morgan, subordinates of Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company, provided financial and logistical support to the Filibusters in exchange for Walker, as ruler of Nicaragua, seizing the company's property (on the pretext of a charter violation) and turning it over to Garrison and Morgan. Outraged, Vanderbilt dispatched two secret agents to the Costa Rican government with plans to fight Walker. They would help regain control of Vanderbilt's steamboats which had become a logistical lifeline for Walker's army.Template:Sfn
Concerned about Walker's intentions in the region, Costa Rican President Juan Rafael Mora Porras rejected his diplomatic overtures and began preparing the country's military for a potential conflict.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Walker organized a battalion of four companies, of which one was composed of Germans, a second of Frenchmen, and the other two of Americans, totaling 240 men placed under the command of Colonel Schlessinger to invade Costa Rica in a preemptive action. This advance force was defeated at the Battle of Santa Rosa on March 20, 1856.
The most important strategic defeat of Walker came during the Campaign of 1856–57 when the Costa Rican army, led by Porras, General José Joaquín Mora Porras (the president's brother), and General José María Cañas (1809–1860), defeated the Filibusters in Rivas on April 11, 1856 (the Second Battle of Rivas).Template:Sfn It was in this battle that the soldier and drummer Juan Santamaría sacrificed himself by setting the Filibuster stronghold on fire. In parallel with Enmanuel Mongalo y Rubio in Nicaragua, Santamaría would become Costa Rica's national hero. Walker deliberately contaminated the water wells of Rivas with corpses. Later, a cholera epidemic spread to the Costa Rican troops and the civilian population of Rivas. Within a few months nearly 10,000 civilians had died, almost ten percent of the population of Costa Rica.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

From the north, President José Santos Guardiola sent Honduran troops under the leadership of the Xatruch brothers, who joined Salvadoran troops to fight Walker.Template:Citation needed Florencio Xatruch led his troops against Walker and the filibusters in la Puebla, Rivas. Later, because of the opposition of other Central American armies, José Joaquín Mora Porras was made Commandant General-in-Chief of the Allied Armies of Central America in the Third Battle of Rivas (April 1857).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
During this civil war, Honduras and El Salvador recognized Xatruch as brigade and division general. On June 12, 1857, after Walker surrendered, Xatruch made a triumphant entrance to Comayagua, which was then the capital of Honduras. Both the nickname by which Hondurans are known today, Catracho, and the more infamous nickname for Salvadorans, "Salvatrucho", are derived from Xatruch's figure and successful campaign as leader of the allied armies of Central America, as the troops of El Salvador and Honduras were national heroes, fighting side by side as Central American brothers against William Walker's troops.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
As the general and his soldiers returned from battle, some Nicaraguans affectionately yelled out Template:Lang ("Here come Xatruch's boys!") However, Nicaraguans had trouble pronouncing the general's Catalan name, so they altered the phrase to "los catruches" and ultimately to "los catrachos".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
A key role was played by the Costa Rican Army in unifying the other Central American armies to fight against Filibusters. The "Campaign of the Transit" (1857) is the name given by Costa Rican historians to the groups of several battles fought by the Costa Rican Army, supervised by Colonel Salvador Mora, and led by Colonel Blanco and Colonel Salazar at the San Juan River. By establishing control of this bi-national river at its border with Nicaragua, Costa Rica prevented military reinforcements from reaching Walker and his Filibuster troops via the Caribbean Sea. Also, Costa Rican diplomacy neutralized U.S. official support for Walker by taking advantage of the dispute between the magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Walker.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Walker took up residence in Granada and set himself up as President of Nicaragua, after conducting a fraudulent election. He was inaugurated on July 12, 1856, and soon launched an Americanization program, reinstating slavery, declaring English an official language, and reorganizing currency and fiscal policy to encourage emigration from the United States.Template:Sfn Realizing that his position was becoming precarious, he sought support from the Southerners in the U.S. by recasting his campaign as a fight to spread the institution of black slavery, which was the basis of the Southern agrarian economy. With this in mind, Walker revoked Nicaragua's emancipation edict of 1821.Template:Sfn This move increased Walker's popularity among Southern whites and attracted the attention of Pierre Soulé, an influential New Orleans politician, who campaigned to raise support for Walker's war. Nevertheless, Walker's army was weakened by massive defections and an epidemic of cholera and was finally defeated by the Central American coalition led by Costa Rican President Juan Rafael Mora Porras (1814–1860).
On October 12, 1856, Guatemalan Colonel José Víctor Zavala crossed the square of the city to the house where Walker's soldiers took shelter. Under heavy fire, he reached the enemy's flag and carried it back with him, shouting to his men that the Filibuster bullets did not kill.Template:Sfn
On December 14, 1856, as Granada was surrounded by 4,000 troops from Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, along with independent Nicaraguan allies, Charles Frederick Henningsen, one of Walker's generals, ordered his men to set the city ablaze before escaping and fighting their way to Lake Nicaragua. When retreating from Granada, the oldest Spanish colonial city in Nicaragua, he left a detachment with orders to level it in order to instill, as he put it, "a salutary dread of American justice". It took them over two weeks to smash, burn and flatten the city; all that remained were inscriptions on the ruins that read Template:Lang ("Here was Granada").<ref>Theodore Henry Hittell, History of California (N.J. Stone, 1898), p. 797 Template:ISBN?</ref>
On May 1, 1857, Walker surrendered to Commander Charles Henry Davis of the United States Navy under the pressure of Costa Rica and the Central American armies and was repatriated. Upon disembarking in New York City, he was greeted as a hero, but he alienated public opinion when he blamed his defeat on the U.S. Navy. Within six months, he set off on another expedition, but he was arrested by the U.S. Navy Home Squadron under the command of Commodore Hiram Paulding and once again returned to the U.S. amid considerable public controversy over the legality of the navy's actions.Template:Sfn
Conviction and execution
After writing an account of his Central American campaign (published in 1860 as War in Nicaragua), Walker once again returned to the region. British colonists in Roatán, Bay Islands, fearing that the Honduran government would move to assert its control over them, approached Walker with an offer to help him in establishing an independent, English-speaking administration over the islands. Walker disembarked in the port city of Trujillo but was arrested by Royal Navy officer Nowell Salmon. Britain, which maintained control over nearby British Honduras and the Mosquito Coast and planned on constructing an inter-oceanic canal through Central America, regarded Walker as a threat to its own affairs in the region.Template:Sfn
Salmon sailed to Trujillo and handed Walker over to the Honduran government along with his chief of staff, A. F. Rudler. Both men were tried by a Honduran military court on charges of piracy and "filibusterism". In his defense, Walker argued that "piracy" involved robbery at sea and that "filibusterism" was not a recognized legal term.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Rudler was sentenced to four years of hard labor in Honduran mines, but Walker was sentenced to be executed by firing squad, which was carried out near the site of the present-day hospital, on September 12, 1860.<ref name=WDL1>Template:Cite web</ref> William Walker was 36 years old. He is buried in the "Old Cemetery", Trujillo, Colón, Honduras.
Influence and reputation
William Walker convinced many Southerners of the desirability of creating a slave-holding empire in tropical Latin America. In 1861, when U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden proposed that the 36°30' parallel north be declared as a line of demarcation between free and slave territories, some Republicans denounced such an arrangement, with New York congressman Roscoe Conkling saying that it "would amount to a perpetual covenant of war against every people, tribe, and State owning a foot of land between here and Tierra del Fuego".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Before the end of the American Civil War, Walker's memory enjoyed great popularity in the southern and western United States, where he was known as "General Walker"Template:Sfn and as the "gray-eyed man of destiny".<ref name="Norvell" /> Northerners, on the other hand, generally regarded him as a pirate. Despite his intelligence and personal charm, Walker consistently proved to be a poor military and political leader.Template:Citation needed Unlike men of similar ambition, such as Cecil Rhodes, Walker's grandiose scheming ultimately failed.
In Central American countries, the successful military campaign of 1856–1857 against William Walker became a source of national pride and identity,<ref name="CostaRicain1856">Template:Cite web</ref> and it was later promoted by local historians and politicians as substitute for the war of independence that Central America had not experienced. April 11 is a Costa Rican national holiday in memory of Walker's defeat at Rivas. Juan Santamaría, who played a key role in that battle, is honored as one of two Costa Rican national heroes, the other one being Juan Rafael Mora himself. The main airport serving San José (in Alajuela) is named in Santamaría's honor.
To this day, a sense of Central American "coalition" among the nations of Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, along with independent Nicaraguan allies, is remembered and celebrated as a unifying shared history.
Cultural legacy

Walker's campaigns in Lower California and Nicaragua are the subject of a historical novel by Alfred Neumann, published in German as Der Pakt (1949), and translated in English as Strange Conquest (a previous UK edition was published as Look Upon This Man).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Walker's campaign in Nicaragua has inspired two films, both of which take considerable liberties with his story: Burn! (1969) directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, starring Marlon Brando, and Walker (1987) directed by Alex Cox, starring Ed Harris. Walker's name is used for the main character in Burn!, though the character is not meant to represent the historical William Walker and is portrayed as British.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On the other hand, Alex Cox's Walker incorporates into its surrealist narrative many of the signposts of William Walker's life and exploits, including his original excursions into northern Mexico to his trial and acquittal on breaking the neutrality act to the triumph of his assault on Nicaragua and his execution.<ref>Grove, Lloyd. "Hollywood Invades Nicaragua". The Washington Post, August 20, 1987.</ref>
In Part Five, Chapter 48, of Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell cites William Walker, "and how he died against a wall in Truxillo", as a topic of conversation between Rhett Butler and his filibustering acquaintances, while Rhett and Scarlett O'Hara are on honeymoon in New Orleans.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
A poem written by Nicaraguan Catholic priest and minister of culture from 1979 to 1987 during the Sandinista period Ernesto Cardenal, Con Walker En Nicaragua, translated as With Walker in Nicaragua,<ref>With Walker in Nicaragua and Other Early Poems, 1949–1954, translated by Jonathan Cohen, Wesleyan University Press, 1985</ref> gives a historical treatment of the affair from the Nicaraguan perspective.
The villain of the Nantucket series, by science fiction writer S. M. Stirling, is a 20th-century American mercenary named William Walker, who is time-displaced from 1998 CE to 1250 BCE. Walker demonstrates a similar personality to his historical namesake, leading a filibuster force to Mycenaean Greece and initiating a version of the Trojan War with firearms.
John Neal's 1859 novel True Womanhood includes a character who travels from the US to Nicaragua. When he returns, it turns out he has been involved in Walker's campaign there.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref> This may be based on his son James or his friend's son, Appleton Oaksmith, both of whom made the trip and were involved with Walker in that country.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref>
Works
- Walker, William. The War in Nicaragua. New York (NY): S.H. Goetzel, 1860.<ref>Template:Oclc</ref>
- The War in Nicaragua at Project Gutenberg
See also
- Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon
- Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society interested in annexing territories in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean to be added to the United States as slave states
- Nicaragua Canal
- Panama Canal
- Florencio Xatruch
- Granada, Nicaragua, the colonial city that William Walker destroyed
Notes
References
Secondary sources
- Carr, Albert Z. The World and William Walker, 1963.
- Dando-Collins, Stephen. Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer (2008) excerpt and text search
- Template:Ws
- Template:Cite book
- Gobat, Michel. Empire by Invitation: William Walker and Manifest Destiny in Central America (Harvard UP, 2018) roundtable evaluation by scholars at H-Diplo
- Juda, Fanny. California Filibusters: A History of their Expeditions into Hispanic America
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Moore, J. Preston. "Pierre Soule: Southern Expansionist and Promoter," Journal of Southern History 21:2 (May, 1955), 208 & 214.
- Norvell, John Edward, "How Tennessee Adventurer William Walker became Dictator of Nicaragua in 1857: The Norvell Family origins of the Grey Eyed Man of Destiny," The Middle Tennessee Journal of Genealogy and History, Vol XXV, No. 4, Spring 2012
- "1855: American Conquistador," American Heritage, October 2005.
- Recko, Corey. "Murder on the White Sands." University of North Texas Press. 2007
- Template:Cite book
- "William Walker" Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 28 Oct. 2008.
Primary sources
- Doubleday, C.W. Reminiscences of the Filibuster War in Nicaragua. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1886.
- Jamison, James Carson. With Walker in Nicaragua: Reminiscences of an Officer of the American Phalanx. Columbia, MO: E.W. Stephens, 1909.
- Wight, Samuel F. Adventures in California and Nicaragua: a Truthful Epic. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1860.
- Fayssoux Collection. Tulane University. Latin American Library.
- United States Magazine. Sept., 1856. Vol III No. 3. pp. 266–72
- "Filibustering", Putnam's Monthly Magazine (New York), April 1857, 425–35.
- "Walker's Reverses in Nicaragua," Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 17, 1856.
- "The Lesson" National Era, June 4, 1857, 90.
- "The Administration and Commodore Paulding," National Era, January 7, 1858.
- "Wanted – A Few Filibusters," Harper's Weekly, January 10, 1857.
- "Reception of Gen. Walker," New Orleans Picayune, May 28, 1857.
- "Arrival of Walker," New Orleans Picayune, May 28, 1857.
- "Our Influence in the Isthmus," New Orleans Picayune, February 17, 1856.
- New Orleans Sunday Delta, June 27, 1856.
- "Nicaragua and President Walker," Louisville Times, December 13, 1856.
- "Le Nicaragua et les Filibustiers," Opelousas Courier, May 10, 1856.
- "What is to Become of Nicaragua?," Harper's Weekly, June 6, 1857.
- "The Late General Walker," Harper's Weekly, October 13, 1860.
- "What General Walker is Like," Harper's Weekly, September, 1856.
- "Message of the President to the Senate in Reference to the Late Arrest of Gen. Walker," Louisville Courier, January 12, 1858.
- "The Central American Question – What Walker May Do," New York Times, January 1, 1856.
- "A Serious Farce," New York Times, December 14, 1853.
- 1856–57 New York Herald Horace Greeley editorials.
Further reading
- Harrison, Brady. William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2004. Template:ISBN.
- Cabrera Geserick, Marco. "The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity and Collective Memory in Central America." Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2019. Template:ISBN.
- Deville, Patrick, Pura Vida: Vie et mort de William Walker, Seuil, Paris, 2004 Template:ISBN?
- Scroggs, William O., Ph.D., Professor of Economics and Sociology in Louisiana State University. Filibusters and Financiers: the Story of William Walker and his Associates. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916.
External links
Template:Commons category Template:Appletons' poster
- "Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt fought war over route through Central America" Template:Webarchive from the Vanderbilt Register
- "Filibustering with William Walker" from the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
- Fuchik, Don "The Saga of William Walker" The California Native Newsletter
- Walker the 1987 Alex Cox movie, Walker, featuring Ed Harris as William Walker, at the Internet Movie Database
- "How Tennessee Adventurer William Walker became Dictator of Nicaragua in 1857 The Norvell family origins of The Grey Eyed Man of Destiny"
- The memory palace podcast episode about William Walker. Template:Webarchive
- Walker, William "The War in Nicaragua" at Google Books
- Brief recount of William Walker trying to conquer Baja California Template:In lang
- With Walker in Nicaragua by Ernesto Cardenal, translated by Jonathan Cohen
- Maps of North America and the Caribbean showing Walker's expeditions at omniatlas.com
Template:Presidents and heads of state of Nicaragua Template:Pirates
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