Under a fierce fire Henningsen continued the work of destruction until almost the entire town was reduced to ashes. His position, encumbered as he was with sick and wounded, was so perilous that he determined to capture the Guadaloupe church at any cost, as that important position commanded the passage to the lake. That end was not attained without the loss of many valuable lives and two days of hard fighting. Finally, on the 27th of November, the church was carried by assault, and all the American force, with their supplies, ammunition, and non-combatants, were safely transferred to the new quarters. A guard of thirty men, detailed to protect the wharf on the lake, three miles away, had been betrayed and captured two days before. Henningsen, in order to secure communication with the lake, began throwing up a line of earthworks along the whole distance, the enemy contesting every inch of the road. To keep the latter in check, Captain Swingle and his howitzers were employed night and day. When ammunition ran short the ingenious gunner made balls from scraps of iron piled in a mould of clay and soldered together with lead.
As soon as they had effected communication with some adobe huts half way to the lake, Henningsen removed the sick and wounded to the more healthful land near the water. It was none too soon, for over a hundred men had perished from the ravages of cholera and typhus in the crowded quarters of the Guadaloupe. Lieutenant Sumpter with seventy men was left to garrison the church. Meanwhile the enemy had not been idle; they had thrown up earthworks between the lake and Henningsen's defences, and gathered a strong force to prevent the advance of relief from that direction.
For three weeks the unequal fight lasted, until of the four hundred men who had remained to burn Granada, less than one hundred and fifty answered to the roll-call on the 13th of December. To Zavala's demand for their surrender Henningsen sent back word that he would parley only at the cannon's mouth. Their position, nevertheless, was so critical that many of the men talked openly of forsaking their helpless comrades and cutting their way to the lake. Finding that the first sign of such a proceeding would be greeted with a volley of grape, for Henningsen had learned from his chief the way to deal with insubordination, a few of the malcontents deserted to the enemy. The rest imitated the heroic fortitude of their officers, and all shared together their sorry rations of mule and horse meat as long as they lasted. That was not long; they had reached the limit of their supplies on the 12th of December, and Henningsen sent a message to Walker begging immediate relief. A native boy of the Sandwich Islands, who had come to Nicaragua on the _Vesta_, and who was known in the army as "Kanaka John," volunteered to carry the note. It was given to him sealed and enclosed in a bottle. The boy made his way unperceived through the enemy's lines, and reached the water in time to see the lake steamer, _La Virgen_, lying beyond the line of surf, with lights shrouded and not a sign of life on board. The amphibious Kanaka swam out and boarded the steamer, where he found Walker and three or four hundred new recruits from the States.