Identifier: gateofpacific00pimb (find matches)
Title: The gate of the Pacific
Year: 1863 (1860s)
Authors: Pim, Bedford, 1826-1886
Subjects:
Publisher: London : L. Reeve & co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ptain Spencer and General Mora, placedall the approaches in their power; and rapidly followingup this success by the defeat and destruction of a bodyof filibusters at the mouth of the Serepiqui; by theseizure of all the transit steamers; and, by the captureof the forts Castillo Viejo and San Carlos, on the riverSan Juan, they virtually sealed Walkers doom by cut-ting off his communication with the Southern States ofAmerica, and thus stopping his supplies of men andmunitions of war. About 300 recruits for Walkersarmy arrived at Greytown from New Orleans on thevery day Captain Spencer seized the river steamboats,and these men were just in time to see their only meansof transport to the interior disappear up the shallowwaters of the San Juan, where it was impossible toreach them. In the meantime Walker fought the battles of Masayaand Granada, and stood his ground manfully againstfearful odds. The obstinate valour of the filibusters, asdisplayed by holding the walls of the great church of
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DEFENCE OF GUADALUPE CHURCH. 45 Granada against eight times their number, reads morelike romance than reality. When I visited the spot in1860, I was much struck by the appearance of the ruins,which were absolutely covered with rifle bullets andshot-holes; the place seemed to be quite shelterless;nevertheless General Henningsen, with 400 men, de-fended the bare walls for nineteen days against upwardsof 3000 Central Americans ; the besieged lived on theirhorses while they lasted, and then sustained life by eatingthe dead bodies of their comrades; their sufferings wereawful, yet not one thought of surrender. On the nine-teenth day only 150 were left out of the 400, and Gene-ral Henningsen determined, as a last resort, to cut hisway through the enemy; but that night General Walker,with 175 men, landed from the lake in the rear of thebesieging army, forced his way over three successivebreastworks, and after a most gallant and daring attack,though with the loss of nearly half his number, ef

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