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Updated: June 23, 2025
But enough of him, strange dog, or devil. The withdrawal from Obraja was opposed, so rumor said, by Henningsen and other officers; and it certainly had a most depressing effect upon the men, whilst it elated the enemy correspondingly, giving them a degree of confidence which they had never attained to before.
Here they told me that Captain Finney's company, whilst riding into Obraja early in the night, had been hotly fired upon, and Captain Finney himself was brought off struck in the breast, wounded mortally. The riflemen had as yet made no attack, but awaited daylight. The number of the enemy was not known; though rumor placed it between one thousand and fifteen hundred.
There we found awaiting us a fourth horseman, charged with orders for the riflemen at Obraja, and whom it was our duty to accompany as guard.
This, with the exception of some rangers, who had been sent forward to scout, was the sole force yet dispatched to meet the enemy, who were now said to be advanced to Obraja, a hamlet nine miles northwest of Rivas. The sun was just setting, and the whole air and sea seemed flooded with rosy rays.
I chose to go forward and hear the rangers' story, who, we were told, had had a slight brush with the enemy in the beginning of the night. After riding near quarter of a mile, I came to another adobe building on the roadside, occupied by a small party, and forming Colonel O'Neal's advanced post, at the distance of four hundred yards or more from Obraja.
From the summit of a high, grass-crowned hill we swept all the surrounding country; toward the east spread a vast sea of verdure, rolled into gentle hollows and ridges, broken by the red roofs of Rivas, San Jorge, and Obraja; and beyond all, the lake stretching into misty remoteness, with its islands, and the ever-notable volcanoes, Madeira and Ometepec, rising abruptly out of it.
This demonstration against Virgin Bay was probably a ruse to divide the filibuster force; for, next day, as I recollect it, the Alcalde of Obraja, a native partisan of General Walker, hurried into Rivas with the news that fifteen hundred of the enemy had landed from the lake, ten or twelve miles above.
Later in the night, the other party, which had been sent to Potosí, came in with panting mules, excited countenances, and one of their number stained with blood from a wound on his thigh. They told us, that, failing to find Captain Finney at Potosí, they had stretched their orders, and gone forward to Obraja, unaware that it was occupied by the enemy.
The other wounded were carried to the hospital, and, finding no one there to take charge of them, we left them to themselves, lying or sitting upon the floor, dismal and uncared-for enough. After dark we were again in the saddle and riding out to Obraja, in charge of a commissary's party, with provisions for the detachment of foot.
The excitement upon this arrival soon subsided, and I had again fallen into unconsciousness, when a rough shake of the shoulder aroused me, and the voice of the old sergeant dinned in my ear, "Come here! saddle up! saddle up! You are detailed for Obraja." In a few moments I was mounted, and, with two others of the company, rode out of the gateway into the street.
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