plot, tried the ringleaders by court-martial, and shot them. With a
force as absolutely undisciplined as was his, the act required the most
complete personal courage. That was a quality the men with him could
fully appreciate. They saw they had as a leader one who could fight,
and one who would punish. The majority did not want a leader who would
punish so when Walker called upon those who would follow him to Sonora
to show their hands, only the original forty-five and about forty of
the later recruits remained with him. With less than one hundred men
he started to march up the Peninsula through Lower California, and so
around the Gulf to Sonora.

From the very start the filibusters were overwhelmed with disaster. The
Mexicans, with Indian allies, skulked on the flanks and rear. Men who
in the almost daily encounters were killed fell into the hands of the
Indians, and their bodies were mutilated. Stragglers and deserters were
run to earth and tortured. Those of the filibusters who were wounded
died from lack of medical care. The only instruments they possessed with
which to extract the arrow-heads were probes made from ramrods filed to
a point. Their only food was the cattle they killed on the march. The
army was barefoot, the Cabinet in rags, the President of Sonora wore one
boot and one shoe.

Unable to proceed farther, Walker fell back upon San Vincente, where he
had left the arms and ammunition of the deserters and a rear-guard of
eighteen men. He found not one of these to welcome him. A dozen had
deserted, and the Mexicans had surprised the rest, lassoing them and
torturing them until they died. Walker now had but thirty-five men. To
wait for further re-enforcements from San Francisco, even were he sure
that re-enforcements would come, was impossible. He determined by forced
marches to fight his way to the boundary line of California. Between him
and safety were the Mexican soldiers holding the passes, and the Indians
hiding on his flanks. When within three miles of the boundary line, at
San Diego, Colonel Melendrez, who commanded the Mexican forces, sent in
a flag of truce, and offered, if they would surrender, a safe-conduct to
all of the survivors of the expedition except the chief. But the men who
for one year had fought and starved for Walker, would not, within three
miles of home, abandon him.

Melendrez then begged the commander of the United States troops to order
Walker to surrender. Major McKinstry, wh