behind them the men
of the awful Phalanx, whom already the natives had learned to fear: the
bearded giants in red flannel shirts who at Rivas on foot had charged
the artillery with revolvers, who at Virgin Bay when wounded had drawn
from their boots glittering bowie knives and hurled them like arrows,
who at all times shot with the accuracy of the hawk falling upon a
squawking hen.

There was a brief terrified stand in the Plaza, and then a complete
rout. As was their custom, the native Democrats began at once to loot
the city. But Walker put his sword into the first one of these he met,
and ordered the Americans to arrest all others found stealing, and to
return the goods already stolen. Over a hundred political prisoners in
the cartel were released by Walker, and the ball and chain to which each
was fastened stricken off. More than two-thirds of them at once enlisted
under Walker's banner.

He now was in a position to dictate to the enemy his own terms of peace,
but a fatal blunder on the part of Parker H. French, a lieutenant of
Walker's, postponed peace for several weeks, and led to unfortunate
reprisals. French had made an unauthorized and unsuccessful assault
on San Carlos at the eastern end of the lake, and the Legitimists
retaliated at Virgin Bay by killing half a dozen peaceful passengers,
and at San Carlos by firing at a transit steamer. For this the excuse of
the Legitimists was, that now that Walker was using the lake steamers
as transports it was impossible for them to know whether the boats were
occupied by his men or neutral passengers. As he could not reach the
guilty ones, Walker held responsible for their acts their secretary
of state, who at the taking of Granada was among the prisoners. He was
tried by court-martial and shot, "a victim of the new interpretation of
the principles of constitutional government." While this act of Walker's
was certainly stretching the theory of responsibility to the breaking
point, its immediate effect was to bring about a hasty surrender and a
meeting between the generals of the two political parties. Thus, four
months after Walker and his fifty-seven followers landed in Nicaragua,
a suspension of hostilities was arranged, and the side for which the
Americans had fought was in power. Walker was made commander-in-chief
of an army of twelve hundred men with salary of six thousand dollars a
year. A man named Rivas was appointed temporary president.

To Walker this pause