By a charter from the
Government of Nicaragua, the right to transport passengers across
this isthmus was controlled by the Accessory Transit Company, of
which the first Cornelius Vanderbilt was president. His company
owned a line of ocean steamers both on the Pacific side and on the
Atlantic side. Passengers _en route_ from New York to the
gold-fields were landed by these latter steamers at Greytown on
the west coast of Nicaragua, and sent by boats of light draught up
the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. There they were met by
larger lake steamers and conveyed across the lake to Virgin Bay.
From that point, in carriages and on mule back, they were carried
twelve miles overland to the port of San Juan del Sud on the
Pacific Coast, where they boarded the company's steamers to San
Francisco.
During the year of Walker's occupation the number of passengers
crossing Nicaragua was an average of about two thousand a
month.
It was to control this route that immediately after his first defeat
Walker returned to San Juan del Sud, and in a smart skirmish
defeated the enemy and secured possession of Virgin Bay, the
halting place for the passengers going east or west. In this fight
Walker was outnumbered five to one, but his losses were only
three natives killed and a few Americans wounded. The
Legitimists lost sixty killed and a hundred wounded.
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