Scott Martelle

William Walker's Wars: How One Man's Private American Army Tried to Conquer Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras

In the decade before the onset of the Civil War, groups of Americans engaged in a series of long shot—and illegal—forays into Mexico, Central America, Cuba, and other countries. Known as filibusters, the goal was to seize territory to create new independent fiefdoms. Most failed miserably. William Walker was the outlier, helping turn the tide in a Nicaragua civil war and through violence and treachery making himself president. It was a short reign, though - he was finally driven from power after angering Cornelius Vanderbilt by seizing his very profitable transit route across the isthmus, and after a bloody war pitting the American adventurers against soldiers from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Guatemala.