Chapter 74: Filibusterer William Walker seizes Nicaragua and installs slavery.

Known as the “grey eyed man of destiny,” Walker graduates from college at fourteen, earns a degrees in medic and law, then edits a newspaper before being drawn to America’s Manifest Destiny craze. He decides to recruit his own army and, after a failed attempt to invade northern Mexico in 1854, gains support from the Democrat Party and conquers Nicaragua in 1854.

With a passive Pierce looking on, he names himself Dictator for Life and reintroduces slavery which had been banned since 1824. His rule ends after 18 months when he interferes with Cornelius Vanderbilt’s railroad line in the south. The Commodore organizes troops from Honduras and El Salvador and Walker flees in June 1857.

He will meet his final destiny on September 12, 1860, tied to a chair and shot to death in Honduras by a barefoot firing squad.