Snowed out in the Santa Rita Foothills

I went out to see my good friend and fellow Pimp Jeff sanders who lives on a nice spread in the foothills of the Santa Rita mountains in SE Arizona. I got snowed out again! not as much as in the Mules but enough to be annoying. We had a good time though, fire making and shooting the shit.
I look forward to going back on a warm sunny day to do some hiking.

Tomahawk

See you on the trail!

Snow on a recent camp out in the mule mountains

I was doing some car camping recently on a 40 acre patch of off grid property a friend of mine owns in the Mule mountains of SE Arizona. I woke up to 8" or 9" of snow. Now, Ill admit it was pretty but I really HATE snow, and was glad when it melted off.

See you on the trail!

Tomahawk

Master Bladesmith and Artisan Tai Goo of Arizona

I met Tai Goo a few years back at Jason Hawks wedding in Aravaca, Arizona. He is an interesting cat. I hooked him up with a Tomahawk designed insulated hammock which he really liked. Im always impressed with his blade and metal work designs. If interested you can check out Tais webpage at - http://www.taigoo.com/

Im sure you will be suitable impressed with his work.

See you on the trail!

Tomahawk

Kevin Estela wilderness programs

Estela wilderness education LLC is owned and operated by my good friend and fellow educator Kevin Estela . He offers quality outdoor education on a wide range of wilderness subjects. His vast knowledge and many years teaching in the survival / education industry make him one of the top wilderness educators in the USA.

I highly recommend anyone who is interested in the in depth ,quality programs Kevin offers should check out his webpage at the link below. In addition you can find more information on his facebook page.
 https://www.facebook.com/Estelawildernesseducation/?fref=photo

 Www.kevinestela.com

See you on the trail!

Tomahawk

Blog post from Tim Smith at the Jack mountain Bushcraft school

And yet another quality blog post from my fellow woodman Tim Smith at the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School. www.jackmtn.com ......

http://www.jackmtn.com/simplog/yup-another-knife-blog/

I look forward to getting back to Maine soon.

See you on the trail!

Tomahawk

General Frederick Townsend Ward

Frederick Townsend Ward is one of those American adventurers I would have liked to have a drink or two with. He led an exciting and adventurous life. He is also the founder of China post 1 the American legion post for mercenaries in exile. As a Former soldier, Kentucky colonel, Son of the American legion, and heraldic recipient of the Royal order of the red sash and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. I would consider it an honor to be a member of China post 1. I have been in contact with the members in bagio city in the Philippines and I hope to go there and meet with them so they can verify my military service.


See you on the trail!

Tomahawk

 (November 29, 1831 – September 22, 1862) was an American sailor and soldier of fortune known for his military service in Imperial China during the Taiping Rebellion.

Early life and education

Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts on November 29, 1831. Ward was rebellious in his youth, so his father removed Ward from school in 1847 and found him a position as second mate on the Hamilton, a clipper ship commanded by a family friend. Another version is that Ward demanded to leave school.
Life at sea proved difficult. Ward was given authority over many “old salts”. He was thrown overboard after complaints that he gave too many orders for a youth. Captain William Allen recalled that Ward possessed traits of “reckless daring”, but was on the whole a valuable officer.
On the Hamilton, Ward sailed from New York to Hong Kong in 1847, but probably saw little beyond the port city because the Qing Dynasty forbade foreigners from venturing inland (Hong Kong Island had become a British Crown Colony in 1842, at the end of the First Opium War).
In 1849 Ward enrolled at the “American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy”, now Norwich University, in Vermont, where the curriculum included military tactics, strategy, drill, and ceremonies. He attended for only a few months, before he left school and never returned. In 1850 he shipped out as first mate of the clipper ship Russell Clover. His father was the captain.
Frederick Townsend Ward in the 1850s

• 1850 First Mate, clipper ship Russell Clover, New York to San Francisco. Visits Gold Fields (?) Meets Giuseppe Garibaldi in Panama or Peru (?)
• 1851 First Mate, trading barque, San Francisco & Shanghai. Sailor, coastal cargo ships, China coast
• 1852 Sailor, coastal cargo ships, China coast, First Officer (XO), cargo ship Gold Hunter, carrying coolie labor to Mexico. Debarks in Tehuantepec, Mexico. Meets William Walker, joins Walker forces as filibuster.
• 1853 Part of Walker's Sonora Filibuster Invasion of Mexico, resigns sometime in 1853 or 1854, remains in Mexico
• 1854 Mexico, scrap metal business. Venture fails, travels to San Francisco by mule. First Mate, Westward Ho! clipper ship, San Francisco – New York – Hong Kong. Refuses to filibuster for Taiping's (?) Manchu Government unwilling to employ Westerners. Ward returns to New York, enlists in French Army, Enters Crimean War
• 1855 Ward in Crimean War, allowed to resign after insubordination to superior
• 1856 Whereabouts unknown
• 1857 China, First Mate on coastal steamship Antelope
• 1858 Mercenary for Juarez in Mexico(?) Texas Ranger (?)
• 1859 New York City, clerk in father's shipping agency office. Travels to San Francisco en route to Shanghai (accompanied by brother Harry)
• 1860 Arrives in Shanghai, (never to return to United States). XO on the Confucius, armed pirate suppression river steamer. Commander, Foreign Army Corps.

Filibustering

Aside from working as a sailor during the 1850s, Ward found employment, as a “filibuster”. “Filibustering” is “raising private mercenary armies and leading them into other countries to advance either [one's own] schemes or those of wealthy sponsors”. Ward worked for the infamous “King of the Filibusters”, William Walker, in Mexico, where he learned how to recruit, train, and command mercenary troops.

William Walker

 

Ward also learned to avoid some of Walker's practices and behaviors. Walker has a reputation for being “excessively vain, weak minded and ambitious… his weakness renders him cruel…”During Ward's later time in China, he displayed respect and concern for the Western and Chinese troops under his command, whom he referred to as “my people”.
Ward learned about practical warfare during his “filibusteresque” experience in 1854 and when he served as a lieutenant with the French Army in the Crimean War. He learned about weapons, tactics, using riflemen in mobile platoons rather than in fixed firing lines and siege techniques. Ward also learned that the frontal assault was of limited value against disciplined long range firepower, and he gained experience under fire. He did not serve throughout the entire war, because he was 'allowed' to resign after being insubordinate to a superior officer.
In 1857, Ward sought work as a mercenary, but when he didn't secure such work, he served as the first mate on a coastal steamship in dangerous waters. He worked as a shipping agent in his father's New York City office alongside his brother in 1859.

Shanghai newcomer

According to a contemporary account written in early 1862, Ward and his brother arrived in Shanghai, China in 1860 for the purpose of trading, perhaps as an extension of their father's New York office. This may be true, but given Ward's activities in the 1850s it is almost certain that Ward had ulterior motives for his return. We can be sure he had little respect for the Shanghai business practices, which he dismissed as “lying, swindling and smuggling”. Their arrival coincided with a buildup of Taiping forces in the area.
While Ward's brother set up a trading business in Shanghai, Ward himself took up customary employment as the executive officer on the Confucius, an armed riverboat commanded by an American, employed by the “Shanghai Pirate Suppression Bureau”. The Bureau was organized by Xue Huan and Wu Xu, Shanghai governmental officials who took pains to shield explicit imperial association with Western mercenaries and military, and primarily funded by Yang Fang, a prominent Ningbo banker and mercantilist.
Ward's show of bravery and initiative on board the Confucius reflected great credit upon him, and the prominent men of Shanghai took notice. His exploits, previous military experience, ability to rise above racism and empathize with local populations, and his stated mercenary intentions, made him an attractive candidate to lead a force of foreign nationals in defense of Shanghai against encroaching Taiping forces.
Wu Xu and Yang Fang both increasingly recognized that such a force was necessary, as Imperial forces, frequently staffed by Confucian scholars and conscripts, rather than experienced commanders and soldiers, had all too often proven unequal to the task of defeating Taiping forces.
Through their contacts with the Western business community, and Ward's own relentless self-promotion, in the spring of 1860 Wu and Fang reached out to Ward and became his employers. Ward then began scouring the wharves of Shanghai for every Westerner, sober or otherwise, capable of firing a weapon. With this, the “Shanghai Foreign Arms Corps” was born, which in defeat, would form the nucleus for the “Ever Victorious Army”.

Shanghai Foreign Arms Corps

In 1860, both Chinese and Westerners would place more faith in a small, motley group of mercenaries than readily available local citizenry, because the average Chinese of the time had little understanding of marksmanship, nor much impetus to defend the Manchu throne. Further, with Taiping armies edging closer to Shanghai, there was no time to train native peasants in either conventional Chinese or Western warfare.
On the Shanghai docks, however, Westerners with diverse military experience existed as “discharged seamen, deserters, and other drifters who made Shanghai their temporary home, and even the gainfully employed could be tempted by the prospect of adventure, high pay, and loot.”
This weapon, already forged, was used by Ward against the Taipings, with the backing of local Shanghai ministers and merchants, in a highly charged political atmosphere in which the Manchu Imperial forces had no desire to show their reliance upon Western powers. By the same token, the diplomats and military men of the Western powers discouraged foreign involvement in domestic Chinese matters, even by Westerners in Chinese employ. The Western powers’ concerns did not relate to principle – they were most concerned about the power of the Taipings to block trade downriver from the interior to Shanghai if neutrality were violated.
By June 1860, Ward had a polyglot force of 100 Westerners, trained in the best small arms (including Colt revolvers) and rifles available for purchase in Shanghai. Protesting that his forces were not fully trained, Ward was forced by his Shanghai backers to take his men into action alongside Imperial forces probing Taiping advances, retaking two captured towns. They were then forced by circumstances (and the urging of their Shanghai backers) to assault the Taiping occupied and fortified city of Songjiang, without artillery – a near-impossible task.
The attack failed, sending the thoroughly defeated force back to Shanghai. However, by mid-July, Ward had recruited additional Westerners and over 80 Filipino "Manilamen", and purchased several artillery pieces, and once again, his forces assaulted Sung-Chiang (松江). They were successful, but at enormous cost. Out of a force of roughly 250 men, 62 were killed, and 100 were wounded, including Ward himself.
Ward and his forces now gained a notoriety that attracted new recruits (for the pay was attractive, even if looting was discouraged by Ward), and enraged local Westerners who saw Ward as an inflammatory, filibustering element sure to force the Taipings to stop the flow of trade. More disconcertingly, the Taipings themselves were now aware of a new and potent force against them.
On August 2, 1860, Ward led the Foreign Arms Corps against Chingpu (上海青浦), the next town from Sung-chiang on the approaches to Shanghai, and this time the Taiping were prepared. As the Corps stormed a garrison wall, Taiping forces lying in ambush waited for the optimum moment and then delivered a withering barrage of close-range musket fire. Within 10 minutes, the Foreign Arms Corps had suffered 50% casualties, and Ward himself was shot in the left jaw, with an exit wound in the right cheek, scarring him for life and leaving him with a speech impediment.
The force retreated and Ward returned to Shanghai for medical treatment and to attempt to recruit more forces and buy additional artillery. Within several days he and the remnants of the Foreign Arms Corps laid siege to Chingpu and bombarded it with artillery. By this time, the Taiping's best military leader Li Xiucheng (李秀成), called Zhong Wang (忠王) or “The Faithful King”, dispatched 20,000 troops downriver to break the siege, sending the Foreign Arms Corps fleeing back to the Songjiang area, where Ward's second-in-command, Henry Andres Burgevine (another American fortune seeker), held the Corps briefly together, but it soon "ceased to function as an organized entity"
Ward returned to Shanghai for further treatment of his injury, and was there while the Zhong Wang's forces laid siege, and were beaten back by Western and Imperial forces within the City. Ward left Shanghai (apparently secretly) in late 1860 for further treatment of his facial wound, while the remnants of the Corps remained more or less under the command of Burgevine. [After Ward's death, Burgevine briefly took command of the force, but could not get along with his Imperial Chinese superiors and struck Yang Fang, whereupon Burgevine was relieved of command; he later went over to the Taiping rebels. In 1865, Burgevine was arrested by Imperial officers and died in a drowning accident.
It is unclear as to whether Yang was still funding the Corps in the late fall of 1860, but upon Ward's return in the spring of 1861, Ward was able to attract desired elements of the Corps back to his employ. After his return, Ward tenaciously began to recruit and train replacements for the Foreign Arms Corps, offering terms attractive enough to cause desertion among the many British warships in port. Ward, facing arrest and numerous political difficulties arising from the Western governments’ desire to remain neutral, opted to become a Chinese subject, stymieing efforts by the British navy and other Western forces to stop him.
In May 1861, Ward once again led the Foreign Arms Corps into battle at Chingpu, and once again, the assault failed, with heavy casualties. This was the last major engagement of the Foreign Arms Corps in its “primarily Western” configuration.
Judgments as to the effectiveness of the Foreign Army Corps vary depending upon the sympathies of the author. The most recent Ward biographer, Caleb Carr, seems fairly generous in his estimation of Ward's accomplishments in his 1992 work. However, perhaps the most authoritative judgment was rendered by Richard J. Smith, who stated:
“Repeatedly sent into the field without adequate preparation by Ward's frantic sponsors, the poorly trained and ill-disciplined contingent stood virtually no chance of success against Li Xiucheng's seasoned troops. Sometimes drunk and always disorderly, the Foreign-Arms Corps depended primarily on the element of surprise and the superiority of Western weapons to obtain victory.”
Ward clearly recognized the harsh truth of this statement. He soon embarked upon a new scheme, in which he would reform the more reliable elements of the Corps into the nucleus of an effective fighting force, composed primarily of local Chinese.

Commander of the Ever Victorious Army

Credit for the concept of training Chinese in Western military tactics and arming them with the best available weaponry is sometimes given to Ward, other times to Li Hongzhang, a local Imperial commander “ordered to cooperate with — and keep an eye on — Ward's unruly contingent” and other times to Burgevine, who according to some began the training while Ward was recuperating, having been inspired by the sight of a Chinese gun crew acting under French direction.
Perhaps another factor in the reconsideration of local Chinese troops was the changing mood of the local peasantry. Where before they had been unwilling to fight for Manchu primacy, they were now constantly threatened and in some cases occupied by Taiping forces that were, despite their “heavenly” origin, ruthless in their treatment of local populations. Indeed, in many cases informal militias were formed to drive Taiping forces out, and conduct guerilla operations.
Regardless of the concept's true origin, Ward became its champion and after his untimely death, no other commander could quite repeat his success. Ward's decision to turn to local Chinese forces would ensure his place in history, and help to end the Taiping rebellion.
By the summer of 1861, a training camp was established by Xue Huan's “right hand man” Wu Xu (吳煦) at Song Chiang (松江), where Ward set up operations. Working with the best of the survivors of the Foreign Arms Corp, and supported by a strong Headquarters staff, Ward trained an increasing number (see below) of Chinese in western small arms, gunnery, tactics, customs and drill and ceremonies. Particular care was taken to train the Chinese to hold their fire until their targets were within effective range. Chinese troops, both Taiping and Imperial, “had a lingering faith… in the intimidating power of noise”.
He even trained them to respond to western bugle calls and verbal commands, and most strikingly, outfitted them in Western-style utility uniforms, color-coded for branch of arms (Infantry or Artillery), with Indian “Sepoy” style turbans. This garb, at first distressing to the Chinese troops, earned them the nickname “Imitation Foreign Devils” among the local populace, as well as a fair share of mockery. In time, as the troops proved themselves the equal of their European counterparts, both on the parade ground and the battlefield, their distinct uniforms would become a point of pride.
Another point of pride was their pay, which was both high and consistent by Chinese standards – a strong recruiting drive that triumphed over most discomfort with unfamiliar uniforms. The pay was high in part to attract new recruits to dangerous work, but also to compensate for the lack of “looting” opportunity. Ward strongly discouraged looting, as he knew the practice turned local populaces against their “liberators”. Other benefits offered to Ward's men included better rations, billets, and of course, better chance of survival in combat.
By January 1862, with about one thousand Chinese soldiers trained and ready, Ward stated that his unit was ready for the field – much to the relief of his Shanghai backers, particularly Yang Fang, who had significantly invested both government and private funds into the force's recruitment, arms and supplies. This was timely, as within the same month, the Chung Wang's forces reentered that region with over 120,000 troops, in an attempt to first cut off, and then enter and occupy Shanghai.
Ward, ever hungry for glory and no doubt seeking redress for his facial injury, welcomed the conflict, and was absolutely confident in his troops' ability to defend his Songjiang headquarters, while simultaneously operating as “flying columns” to be directed to strategic areas and Taiping vulnerabilities. He soon had several opportunities to test this confidence.
In the middle of January, about 10 miles north of Shanghai in Wu-Sung, and over 25 snow-covered miles from their own headquarters, Ward lead his new army into action, under a banner carrying a Chinese rendering of his own name reading “HUA” (華, 华). His forces drove the Taipings from their entrenched positions, despite greater rebel numbers. A week later, after a return march, Ward's forces struck at the city of Guangfulin, occupied by over 20,000 Taiping troops, just five miles from Ward's own headquarters.
Ward, at the head of five hundred men, attacked the city without artillery support. The defenders, seeing the strange attire, military skill and foreign leadership of their own countrymen, wavered and “were filled with dismay and fled precipitately”
In February, again facing Taiping forces moving near his training area, Ward took five hundred troops and in joint operations with local Imperial commanders, drove the rebels from Yinchipeng, Chenshan, Tianmashan, and other areas around Songjiang. In the course of these actions against superior numbers, thousands of Taiping were killed or wounded, while Ward himself suffered five wounds, including the loss of a finger to a musket ball.
Li Xiucheng, enraged at this foreign irritant, had a force of 20,000 attack Songjiang, defended only by Ward's force of about 1,500 men. Upon approach, rebel forces came under the fire of camouflaged artillery and lost over 2,000 men. Immediately thereafter infantry struck out of the city at the rebels, and cut off and captured another 800, while capturing a large number of boats bearing Taiping supplies and arms.
The Taipings beat a hasty retreat, rather than lay siege to such a hornet's nest. It was this moment, perhaps, that secured Ward's reputation among all the people of the Shanghai area; Chinese, Western and Taiping alike. From this moment on, the key Western commanders and politicians would support him, funds for troops would flow relatively freely from Imperial coffers, and his decisions would no longer be second-guessed by his backers in Shanghai.
By March 1862, Ward's force would be officially named by the Qing government, and to history, as “The Ever Victorious Army”, and Ward himself would be made first a 4th-rank, and then a 3rd-rank mandarin, high honors from the Manchu court for a "barbarian".
Through the course of 1862, “The Ever Victorious Army” (常勝軍); would essentially live up to its name, again and again defeating numerically superior opponents, often in entrenched positions. Further, its presence on the battlefield and example of effective Chinese soldiering served as a “force multiplier” for Imperial Anhui units commanded by Li Hongzhang, between whom and Ward mutual respect grew during joint operations.
During the summer, Ward's “duckfoot” background found immediate application to the problems of land warfare. The Chung Wang's growing Taiping forces in the area led to multiple threats at multiple points across the region. Clearly, mobility was needed for Ward's limited forces, but the road system was inadequate.
While another commander might have tried to solve the problem through additional wagons and horses, Ward saw the rivers and canals criss-crossing the region not as obstacles, but as passageways. He quickly secured the use of several river steamers, fitted them out as mobile artillery and troop transports, and increased his army's effectiveness several times over. Li Xiucheng himself later “attributed his defeats in the Suzhou area to Western steamers. Taiping land forces could contend with "foreign devils", he believed, but rebel water forces could not.”
Throughout this time, Ward's reputation continued to grow. Ward himself, outwardly caring little for public adulation, still sought to quench some inner need for further glory, and hoped to participate in an eventual strike against Nanjing, the Taiping capital, but this would not be. The Manchu court, suspicious of Ward from the beginning, grew even more concerned that as time passed, he refused to shave his forehead, wear a queue or even appear in his fine Mandarin robes. These and other comments regarding his ambitions led the court to limit the size of his unit far beneath his potential to recruit for it, and to give Ward far less rein than they would have to a commander with more Confucian leanings.
By September, the Ever Victorious Army would number over 5,000 men, organized in four battalions as well as an artillery corps, with several riverboats used for transport and mobile artillery.

Ward's army - troop strength over time

• June 1860 100 Foreign mercenaries, (no artillery at this time)
• July 1860 250 Foreign mercenaries, artillery present from this date on
• August 1860 200+ Foreign mercenaries, severe casualties, perhaps 50% effective
• December 1860 Corps inactive (and unpaid?) while Ward absent
• May 1861 200+ Foreign mercenaries, severe casualties
• June 1861 50+ Foreign mercenaries, Chinese training camp established
• July 1861 150 Chinese + foreign officers
• October 1861 400 Chinese + foreign officers
• November 1861 Officially 430 Chinese + foreign officers, Spence states perhaps 3,000 more in actuality + armed riverboats & transports
• January 1862 1,000 Chinese + foreign officers
• May 1862 3,000 Chinese + foreign officers
• September 1862 5,000 Chinese + foreign & Chinese officers

Sources – Carr, Smith, Spence

Death in battle

Ward's tombstone in Taiping Kingdom History Museum

Ward was mortally wounded in the Battle of Cixi, about 10 miles from Ningbo on September 21, 1862, when he was shot in the abdomen. One version is that he was wounded at the base of the city wall. Ward survived 14 previous battlefield injuries.
Ward lingered for a day. During that time he dictated a will ensuring his brother, sister and Chinese wife would be cared for; he expired on the morning of September 22, 1862. Ward died at the height of his fame, leaving an unusual, original army forged by an even more unusual commander.

Legacy

Just as the events of the American Civil War overshadowed Ward's accomplishments in China during his life, his reputation after his death was overshadowed by Charles George Gordon, aka "Chinese Gordon", a British Army officer. After Ward's death, the command of the Ever-Victorious Army passed to his second in command, E. Forrester, Henry Andres Burgevine and later to Gordon. Gordon biographers diminish or disregard that Ward creation, the Ever Victorious Army, an original and unique military development which made Gordon's famed success in China possible. Today, Chinese Gordon is remembered, while Ward is largely forgotten. Some of Gordon's fame is due to his dramatic death in Khartoum years after the Taiping Rebellion.
There have been several books on Ward and the Ever Victorious Army by Ward's contemporaries and biographers published in the century since his death that seek to acknowledge Ward's contributions. The bestseller, The Devil Soldier (1992), by renowned historian and novelist Caleb Carr, was optioned for a motion picture soon after publication. Actor Tom Cruise and director John Woo were developing a movie scripted by Carr, but the project was never completed. The plot of the film The Last Samurai, produced in 2003, was inspired by the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigō Takamori, and to a lesser extent, by the stories of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the earlier Boshin War, and of Frederick Townsend Ward.

Physical remains and monuments

There are just two U.S. memorials to Ward, both in Salem, MA: a headstone at an unfilled grave, and a collection of materials detailing his life and times by the Essex Institute. Caleb Carr explains that “Ward's remains were dug up, and his grave site and shrine were destroyed and paved over. The whereabouts of Ward's bones today are unknown. They have almost certainly been destroyed. A plain headstone over a cenotaph in Salem is the only memorial to this most noteworthy of nineteenth-century American adventurers.”
Ward is also remembered in a Songjiang Roman Catholic Church, and in a Nanjing museum. One visitor wrote “The grave of Ward, a Protestant, revered as a Chinese Confucian hero, with a temple in his honour, now lies under the altar of a Roman Catholic church [built in 1982], whilst the land itself is the property of the local Buddhist monastery in a Communist state... Ward has not been forgotten in Songjiang and local memory still has Ward's bones under the high altar of the Catholic church”. Ward's accomplishments are documented in the Taiping Rebellion Museum in Nanjing. One visitor remarked “To my surprise I saw, in a museum in Nanjing, a tribute to Ward — a large headstone bearing Ward's name, put in place by the American Legion on May 29, 1923.“

American Legion China Post One

American Legion China Post One, formed in 1919 one year after the "great war" and chartered by the American Legion on 20 April 1920, was originally named the General Frederick Townsend Ward Post No. 1, China. It is the only Post nominally headquartered in a Communist country, and has been operating in exile since 1948 — presently in Fate, Texas.

William Walker - American mercenary

William Walker (May 8, 1824 – September 12, 1860) was an American physician, lawyer, journalist and mercenary, who organized several private military expeditions into Latin America, with the intention of establishing English-speaking colonies under his personal control, an enterprise then known as "filibustering." Walker usurped the presidency of the Republic of Nicaragua in 1856 and ruled until 1857, when he was defeated by a coalition of Central American armies. He was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860.

 Early life
Walker was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1824 to James Walker and his wife Mary Norvell. His father was a son of a Scottish immigrant. His mother was a daughter of Lipscomb Norvell, an American Revolutionary War officer from Virginia. One of Walker's maternal uncles was John Norvell, a US Senator from Michigan and founder of The Philadelphia Inquirer. William Walker was engaged to Helen Martin, but they never married, and he died without any children.
William Walker graduated summa cum laude from the University of Nashville at the age of fourteen.^[1] He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and University of Heidelberg before receiving his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 19. He practiced briefly in Philadelphia before moving to New Orleans to study law.
He practiced law for a short time, and then quit to become co-owner and editor of the New Orleans Crescent. In 1849, he moved to San Francisco, where he was a journalist and fought three duels; he was wounded in two of them. Walker then conceived the idea of conquering vast regions of Latin America and creating new slave states to join those already part of the United States. These campaigns were known as filibustering or freebooting.

Expedition to Mexico

In the summer of 1853, Walker traveled to Guaymas, seeking a grant from the government of Mexico to create a colony, using the pretext that it would serve as a fortified frontier, protecting US soil from Indian raids. Mexico refused, and Walker returned to San Francisco determined to obtain his colony, regardless of Mexico's position. He began recruiting from amongst American supporters of slavery and the Manifest Destiny Doctrine, mostly inhabitants of Kentucky and Tennessee. His intentions then changed from forming a buffer colony to establishing an independent Republic of Sonora, which might eventually take its place as a part of the American Union (as had been the case previously with the Republic of Texas). He funded his project by "selling scrips which were redeemable in lands of Sonora."
On October 15, 1853, Walker set out with 45 men to conquer the Mexican territories of Baja California Territory and Sonora State. He succeeded in capturing La Paz, the capital of sparsely populated Baja California, which he declared the capital of a new Republic of Lower California, with himself as president and his partner, Watkins, as vice president; he then put the region under the laws of the American state of Louisiana, which made slavery legal. Fearful of attacks by Mexico, Walker moved his headquarters twice over the next three months, first to Cabo San Lucas, and then further north to Ensenada to maintain a more secure position of operations, because he lost to General Manuel Márquez de León. Although he never gained control of Sonora, less than three months later, he pronounced Baja California part of the larger Republic of Sonora. Lack of supplies and strong resistance by the Mexican government quickly forced Walker to retreat.
Back in California, he was put on trial for conducting an illegal war, in violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794. However, in the era of Manifest Destiny, his filibustering project was popular in the southern and western United States and the jury took eight minutes to acquit him.

Conquest of Nicaragua

Walker's Nicaragua map

Since there was no inter-oceanic route joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the time, and the transcontinental railway had not been completed, a major trade route between New York City and San Francisco ran through southern Nicaragua. Ships from New York entered the San Juan River from the Atlantic and sailed across Lake Nicaragua. People and goods were then transported by stagecoach over a narrow strip of land near the city of Rivas, before reaching the Pacific and being shipped to San Francisco. The commercial exploitation of this route had been granted by Nicaragua to the Accessory Transit Company, controlled by shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt (see also Nicaragua Canal).
In 1854, a civil war erupted in Nicaragua between the Legitimist Party (also called the Conservative Party), based in the city of Granada, and the Democratic Party (also called the Liberal Party), based in León. The Democratic Party sought military support from Walker who, to circumvent U.S. neutrality laws, obtained a contract from Democratic president Francisco Castellón to bring as many as three hundred "colonists" to Nicaragua. These mercenaries received the right to bear arms in the service of the Democratic government. Walker sailed from San Francisco on May 3, 1855, with approximately 60 men. Upon landing, the force was reinforced by 170 locals and about 100 Americans, including the well-known explorer and journalist Charles Wilkins Webber and the English adventurer Charles Frederick Henningsen, a veteran of the First Carlist War, the Hungarian Revolution, and the war in Circassia.
With Castellón's consent, Walker attacked the Legitimists in the town of Rivas, near the trans-isthmian route. He was driven off, but not without inflicting heavy casualties. On September 4, during the Battle of La Virgen, Walker defeated the Legitimist army. On October 13, he conquered the Legitimist capital of Granada and took effective control of the country. Initially, as commander of the army, Walker ruled Nicaragua through provisional President Patricio Rivas. U.S. President Franklin Pierce recognized Walker's regime as the legitimate government of Nicaragua on May 20, 1856. Walker's first ambassadorial appointment, Colonel Parker H. French, was refused recognition.^[
Meanwhile, C. K. Garrison and Charles Morgan, subordinates of Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company, provided financial and logistic assistance to the filibusters in exchange for Walker, as ruler of Nicaragua, seizing the Company's property (on the pretext of a charter violation) and turning it over to Garrison and Morgan. Outraged, Vanderbilt dispatched two secret agents to the Costa Rican government with detailed plans on how to deal a death blow to the filibusters. They would help regain control of Vanderbilt's steamboats which had become a logistical lifeline for Walker's army.
Walker had also scared his neighbors and potential American and European investors with talk of further military conquests in Central America. Juan Rafael Mora, President of Costa Rica, rejected Walker's diplomatic overtures and instead declared war on his regime, the Campaign of 1856–57. Walker organized a battalion of four companies, of which one was composed by Germans, a second by Frenchmen and the other two by Americans totaling 240 men placed under the command of Colonel Schlessinger to invade Costa Rica in a preemptive action, but this advance force was defeated at the Battle of Santa Rosa in March 20, 1856. In April 1856, Costa Rican troops entered into Nicaraguan territory and inflicted a defeat on Walker's men at the Second Battle of Rivas, in which Juan Santamaría, later to be recognized as one of Costa Rica's national heroes, played a key role.

Walker's flag of Nicaragua

From the north, President José Santos Guardiola sent Honduran troops who went side by side with Salvadoran troops to fight William Walker under the leadership of the Xatruch brothers. Florencio Xatruch was named General-in-Chief of the Allied Armies of Central America. He also led the combat against the filibusters in la Puebla, Rivas. Later, for political reasons, Juan Rafael Mora was left in charge. Several Central American countries recognized Xatruch as Brigade and Division General. On June 12, 1857, Xatruch made a triumphant entrance to Comayagua, which was then the capital of Honduras, after Walker surrendered. The nickname by which Hondurans are known popularly still today, Catracho, and the more infamous nickname Salvadorans are known today, Salvatrucho are derived from Xatruch's figure and successful campaign as leader of the Allied Armies of Central America, as the troops of El Salvador and Honduras were national heroes, that played a key role, fighting side by side as Central American brothers against William Walker's troops. As the general and his soldiers returned from battle, some Nicaraguans affectionately yelled out "¡Vienen los xatruches!", meaning "Here come Xatruch's boys!" However, Nicaraguans had so much trouble pronouncing the general's last name (a Catalan last name) that they altered the phrase to "los catruches" and ultimately settled on "los catrachos".

Walker's house in Granada. On October 12, 1856, during the siege of Granada, Guatemalan officer José Víctor Zavala ran under heavy fire to capture the flag and bring it back to the Central American coalition Army trenches shouting Filibuster bullets don't kill! Zavala came out unscatched of this adventure.

Walker took up residence in Granada and set himself up as President of Nicaragua, after conducting a fraudulent election. He was inaugurated on July 12, 1856, and soon launched an Americanization program, reinstating slavery, declaring English an official language and reorganizing currency and fiscal policy to encourage immigration from the United States. Realizing that his position was becoming precarious, he sought support from the Southerners in the U.S. by recasting his campaign as a fight to spread the institution of black slavery, which many American Southern businessmen saw as the basis of their agrarian economy. With this in mind, Walker revoked Nicaragua's emancipation edict of 1824. This move did increase Walker's popularity in the South and attracted the attention of Pierre Soulé, an influential New Orleans politician, who campaigned to raise support for Walker's war. Nevertheless, Walker's army, weakened by an epidemic of cholera and massive defections, was no match for the Central American coalition.
On October 12, 1856, Guatemalan Colonel José Víctor Zavala performed an incredible act of courage: he crossed the square of the city to the house where Walker soldiers took shelter; under heavy fire, he made it to the enemy's flag and carried it back with him shouting to his men that the filibuster bullets did not kill. On December 14, 1856, as Granada was surrounded by 4,000 Honduran, Salvadoran and Guatemalan troops, Charles Frederick Henningsen, one of Walker's generals, ordered his men to set the city ablaze before escaping and fighting their way to Lake Nicaragua. An inscription on a lance reading Aquí fue Granada ("Here was Granada") was left behind at the smoking ruin of the ancient capital city.
On May 1, 1857, Walker surrendered to Commander Charles Henry Davis of the United States Navy under the pressure of the Central American armies, and was repatriated. Upon disembarking in New York City, he was greeted as a hero, but he alienated public opinion when he blamed his defeat on the U.S. Navy. Within six months, he set off on another expedition, but he was arrested by the U.S. Navy Home Squadron under the command of Commodore Hiram Paulding and once again returned to the U.S. amid considerable public controversy over the legality of the Navy's actions.

Death in Honduras

Walker's grave in the Old Trujillo Cemetery, Colón, Honduras

After writing an account of his Central American campaign (published in 1860 as War in Nicaragua), Walker once again returned to the region. British colonists in Roatán, in the Bay Islands, fearing that the government of Honduras would move to assert its control over them, approached Walker with an offer to help him in establishing a separate, English-speaking government over the islands. Walker disembarked in the port city of Trujillo, but soon fell into the custody of Commander Nowell Salmon (later Admiral Sir Nowell Salmon) of the British Royal Navy. The British government controlled the neighboring regions of British Honduras (now Belize) and the Mosquito Coast (now part of Nicaragua) and had considerable strategic and economic interest in the construction of an inter-oceanic canal through Central America. It therefore regarded Walker as a menace to its own affairs in the region.
Rather than return him to the US, for reasons that remain unclear, Salmon sailed to Trujillo and delivered Walker to the Honduran authorities, together with his chief of staff, Colonel A. F. Rudler. Rudler was sentenced to 4 years in the mines, but Walker was sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad, near the site of the present-day hospital, on September 12, 1860. Walker was 36 years old. He is buried in the Old Cemetery, in Trujillo.

Influence and reputation

William Walker convinced many Southerners of the desirability of creating a slave-holding empire in tropical Latin America. In 1861, when U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden proposed that the 36°30' parallel north be declared as a line of demarcation between free and slave territories, some Republicans denounced such an arrangement, saying that it "would amount to a perpetual covenant of war against every people, tribe, and State owning a foot of land between here and Tierra del Fuego."
Before the end of the American Civil War, Walker's memory enjoyed great popularity in the southern and western United States, where he was known as "General Walker" and as the "grey-eyed man of destiny". Northerners, on the other hand, generally regarded him as a pirate. Despite his intelligence and personal charm, Walker consistently proved to be a limited military and political leader. Unlike men of similar ambition, such as Cecil Rhodes, Walker's grandiose scheming ultimately failed.
In Central American countries, the successful military campaign of 1856–57 against William Walker became a source of national pride and identity, and it was later promoted by local historians and politicians as substitute for the war of independence that Central America had not experienced. April 11 is a Costa Rican national holiday in memory of Walker's defeat at Rivas. Juan Santamaría, who played a key role in that battle, is honored as one of the two Costa Rican national heroes, the other one being Juan Rafael Mora himself.

Cultural references

Walker's campaign has inspired two films, both of which take considerable liberties with his story: Burn! (1969) directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, starring Marlon Brando, and Walker (1987) directed by Alex Cox, starring Ed Harris. Walker's name is used for the main character in Burn!, though the character is not meant to represent the historical William Walker and is portrayed as British. On the other hand, Alex Cox's Walker incorporates into its surrealist narrative many of the signposts of William Walker's life and exploits, including his original excursions into northern Mexico to his trial and acquittal on breaking the neutrality act to the triumph of his assault on Nicaragua and his execution.
In Part Five, Chapter 48, of Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell cites William Walker, "and how he died against a wall in Truxillo", as topic of conversation between Rhett Butler and his filibustering acquaintances, while Rhett and Scarlett are on honeymoon in New Orleans.
In S. M. Stirling's Nantucket series, a young U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, William Walker, steals a ship loaded with modern technology from the timelost Nantucketers who have arrived in the Late Bronze Age. Like the historical William Walker he embarks on a campaign for conquest and carves for himself a personal empire, first in Britain, then in Mycenean Greece, from which he carries out his own brutal version of the Trojan War.
A long early poem by the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, Con Walker En Nicaragua, translated as With Walker in Nicaragua, gives a historical treatment of the affair.
Nate DiMeo's historical podcast The Memory Palace featured an episode on William Walker entitled "Pres

Bert "Yank" Levy

Bert "Yank" Levy

This guy is kind of off of the Adventure travel/survival subject but I recently purchased a copy of his book on guerilla warfare and it has some psudo wilderness skill in it , ie., caomflage, cover/consealment, movement at night etc.

I also found a 1942 Life magazine which featured Yank and it had a picture of his knife collection. I found it interesting that he had the some of the same knives as myself and some of you.

anyhoo, here is a little info about the man and a few pics too. Also follow the attached link to view a scan of the Guerilla warfare book written by Yank.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3819332/Guerrilla-Warfare-by-Yank-Bert-Levy

Albert "Yank" Levy (October 5, 1897 - February 9, 1965) was a soldier, military instructor and author of a manual on guerrilla warfare.[2] He served with irregular forces in several parts of the world in the 1920s and 30's and was a significant figure at the Osterley Park training school for the British Home Guard during World War II.

Levy was born in Hamilton, Ontario; but his familly moved to Cleveland, Ohio when he was just three months old. He grew up on the streets and claimed that his "real education was in the school of hardknocks". In 1916 he joined the Merchant Navy working as a deck hand.

From 1918 to 1919 Levy served with the 39th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (part of the Jewish Legion) in Palestine and Transjordan. In 1920-21 he was, in his own (attributed) words "mixed up in Mexico" towards the end of the revolution there. Subsequently he was involved in gun-running in Nicaragua, where he served under General Sandino.

Perhaps his most significant military experience was in Spain during the civil war of 1936-39. He served with the International Brigade as an officer in the Saklatava Battalion, under Tom Wintringham, from 1937. He was captured at the Battle of Jarama and spent six months in a Francoist gaol until he was released in a prisoner exchange. Even after all that, he still had to be prevented by friends from re-enlisting and returning to the fray.

In 1940, with the outbreak of World War II he tried to enlist with the Canadian army, but was refused on medical grounds.

Following this refusal, Levy worked his passage to Britain. There he rejoined Wintringham and was involved in establishing the private training school for Home Guard volunteers at Osterley Park.

It was whilst lecturing there that Wintringham helped Levy write his book Guerrilla Warfare as a practical manual. This was published in mass market paperback in Britain and the U.S. and ran to several editions. Levy advocated guerrilla warfare as a democratic means of combatting fascism, frequently attacking the military establishment who overlooked the lessons born of such commanders as Lawrence of Arabia and their experience in irregular war. He also recounts some of his adventures as a guerrilla, such as the time he and his companions trapped cats' tails in mouse traps as a means of distracting sentries.

Subsequently he returned to lecture in America as an advance party when Wintringham was invited to start an Osterley style school in San Bernardino. The school was abandoned when the two local Home Guard commanders shot each other during an argument. Levy gave a successful US lecture tour and had his face pictured on the cover of Life Magazine proclaiming him to be an: Ace Guerrilla. before returning to the UK to form part of Wintringham's occasional 'flying squads' - mobile training units which toured provincial Home Guard units in temporary, often unofficial, training camps.