There were scores of stout men acting
as lieutenants, captains, majors, etc., of slight performance in those
capacities, but who, had they been formed into companies, and asked to
fight now one night, at this desperate juncture, for the _haciendas_
General Walker had promised them, would have done willing, perhaps, and
excellent service. To these might be added all those among the ranks
to whom, from any cause, desertion or expulsion from Nicaragua was
disagreeable,--those who distrusted the Costa-Rican promises, or feared
disgrace at 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.
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