home, or had sick or wounded friends at Rivas, or were
desperate, broken men without other home, or with what other peculiar
motives there might be. With this force gathered to themselves by call
for volunteers, allowed to choose their own officers, furnished with
Colt's revolvers, or bayonets, or both, and led in advance, as a forlorn
hope, with ladders to scale the barricades by,--it is likely the enemy
might have been driven out, and the cause of Regeneration set up once
more. So, at least, it was thought by some. And, indeed, it must have
been extremely discouraging for one of better will to be fearful at
every step that his comrades would dart aside into the bushes and leave
him unsupported; it must have served to cripple the efforts of all the
well-intentioned in the army, and should have been remedied. However,
no call for volunteers was ventured by General Walker,--he, probably,
thinking it too unreasonable to ask his men to do anything for him
unforced.

There were some others who thought affairs might be retrieved, if
General Walker were displaced, at least from his military command,
and Henningsen, or some other, put in his stead. He was exceedingly
unpopular, hated, indeed, by a great many, (I have known more than one
who professed to nourish the intent of shooting him during his next
battle, when the deed could be covered,) was respected only for his
strong will and personal bravery, and had never been superseded, solely,
perhaps, because the great majority of his men were either without
energy, or were careless about everything but escape, and so felt no
interest in dethroning him and setting up another, when thereby they
were not helping their chance of getting out of the Isthmus. However,
there was now a conspiracy commenced by some who were unwilling to leave
Nicaragua, and who distrusted General Walker's ability to save the
filibusters much longer.

But these underworkers had made us no sign up to the night attack on
San Jorge, and the day succeeding that the writer lost sight of the
filibuster camp, and knew what took place in it no more. I will tell how
the withdrawal was brought about, and then extinguish my story. Near the
middle of the day, after returning from San Jorge, the company rode out,
under command of the sergeant, to gather forage for the animals. In
order to give my own mule a respite, I mounted for this occasion a
bad-winded animal, long before used up, and discarded by one of the
co