William Walker (1824-1860) Physician, lawyer, editor, publisher, author, polyglot, magistrate, mercenary, gringo conquistador and soldier of fortune, self-proclaimed President of the Republics of Lower California and Sonora (Mexico), General of the Armies of Nicaragua, would-be emperor of Central America and, to date, the only Nashville-born President of the Republic of Nicaragua. Of all these professions (or near professions), the talented General William Walker arguably excelled the most as a writer. In THE WAR IN NICARAGUA he penned a military classic. Indeed, the book stands as the illustrious climax of his tumultuous life, for in 1860—the same year he wrote and published his classic—he was captured by the British Royal Navy and executed by a Honduran firing squad.

Today all but forgotten in the United States, William Walker is still deeply remembered across all of Latin America—where he is regarded as a monstrous anomaly, a curious blight upon the pages of history. Indeed, a century and a half after his death, in the aftermath of the Iran Contra scandal, Oliver North, the Sandinistas et cetera, William Walker’s long shadow yet haunts and darkens U.S. relations with its neighbors all across Latin America and the Caribbean.