"Greytown is no more!"

The Central American port of Greytown was destroyed by the U.S. Navy in 1854­ to "avenge an insult to the American Minister to Nicaragua," according to official history. Two weeks later, the New York Tribune reported the intrigues that really doomed the port: Greytown had been a hindrance to the supremacy of a U.S.-owned steamboat company and to the colonization plans of American land speculators. Both interests used pretexts to convince the U.S. government to level the town. When an American su