THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE
The storm soon to burst over South America was gathering when Viceroy
Abascal assumed the reins of power in 1806. He made no pretensions to
statesmanship, but it did not escape his shrewd soldier's eye and common
sense that French revolutionary ideas would soon make trouble. Her very
existence threatened in the titan conflict then devastating Europe,
Spain could not be relied upon to spare any of her soldiers to guard her
colonies. He must take care of himself. Wasting no time in seeking to
propitiate the revolutionary elements, he quietly set to work to
organise and arm an efficient army while vigilantly watching the course
of events.
[Illustration: BAKER ON HORSEBACK, LIMA.]
Although less infected than any other province, being the one where the
Spanish bureaucracy was most numerous and powerful, even in Peru Creole
society was honeycombed with revolutionary sentiment. The plots to
secure autonomy came to Abascal's notice, and with the first overt act
he pounced upon the plotters. Two republican visionaries, named Ubaldo
and Aguilar, were the first martyrs for liberty. A few learned and
respected professors in Lima dared to speculate on the future of America
as affected by recent events in Europe, but the viceroy summoned them to
his presence and his stern warnings silenced them. Two young lawyers
held evening parties where politics were discussed by the rising youth
of the capital. One of the ringleaders was condemned to ten years'
imprisonment and the other sent to Spain, while several more were
shipped off to southern Chile. Although the liberals continued to meet
and conspire, and the priests were particularly active, for the present
nothing definite came of all this.
Even the news of the deposition of the Spanish authorities at Quito, La
Paz, and Charcas, in 1809, met with no response from the liberals at
Lima. Abascal banished Riva Aguero, their leader; his expeditions
quickly suppressed the insurrections in Bolivia and Ecuador; and he
redoubled his exertions to strengthen his army, recruiting among the
Indians and half-breeds, and casting cannon. That his apprehensions were
justified was proved by the events of the following year. In rapid
succession Buenos Aires, northern New Granada, Caracas, and Santiago
installed revolutionary juntas in place of the Spanish governors. The
flames of revolution spread rapidly from these centres. Soon the Spanish
officials were overthrown throughout Argentina, Chile, New Granada, and
Venezuela; Bolivia and Ecuador were divided; and only Peru remained
steady. But Abascal, resolute and unshaken, sent his armies against the
triumphant revolutionists. The story of these campaigns is elsewhere
told in connection with the countries where they were conducted. Though
the patriots won some important victories, the loyal arms steadily
advanced.
The redemption of Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia had been mainly achieved
with the resources which Abascal had picked up in South America. Until
1813 the people of the Peninsula were fighting desperately for national
independence against the armies of the great Napoleon. No money or men
could be spared for South America, and Abascal even managed to remit two
million dollars to Spain in a single year--that of 1811. The armies with
which his generals won their early victories were recruited almost
entirely from the native population of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. In
this struggle between Spaniard and Creole, the sturdy Indian of the
plateau, who was dragged reluctant from his home, took no great
interest, but any sympathy he felt was anti-Spanish. Nevertheless, so
ingrained was the habit of obedience that when drilled and commanded by
Spanish officers the half-breeds and Indians made excellent soldiers.
During these six years, only one insurrection touched the territory of
Peru proper. In 1814 the Indians of the Cuzco region rose under the
leadership of one of their own caciques. The whole population of this,
the most southern province of Peru, seems to have sympathised with the
insurrection, and the same feeling extended over the Bolivian border.
When Pumacagua, the Indian leader, advanced into Bolivia the people
about La Paz joined him. But his army was an undisciplined, unarmed mob,
only eight hundred of the twenty thousand who followed him possessing
muskets. The Spanish general, Ramirez, hastened up from southern
Bolivia; the Indians retreated over the Cordillera to Arequipa, where
they were followed by the Spaniards. When Ramirez approached they again
retired to the Bolivian plateau and the game of hide-and-seek ended with
the horrible slaughter of Umachiri near Lake Titicaca.
In 1816 Abascal thought that his work was virtually completed and that
he had earned the right to retire. Resistance was confined to Buenos
Aires, to the thinly populated provinces of Tucuman and Cuyo, and to the
banks of the Orinoco. The Argentine revolutionists were fighting among
themselves, and that they must succumb before an advance in force from
the Bolivian plateau appeared certain. The last act of his
administration was to send out a fleet that compelled four Argentine
ships which Admiral William Brown had brought around the Horn to
withdraw to the Atlantic. He was succeeded by General Pezuela, a
strategist of no mean abilities, who had borne a brilliant part in the
Bolivian campaigns. The new viceroy straightway set about final
preparations for a decisive advance across the pampas to Buenos Aires,
but like a thunderbolt from a clear sky came the news that San Martin
had made a sudden descent on Chile and won the battle of Chacabuco,
annihilating the Spanish forces in that country. Pezuela saw himself
obliged to begin a war to reduce Chile to obedience--an undertaking sure
to be long and arduous, and in which he must encounter a general whose
technical mastery of the profession had enabled him to create an army
equal in discipline and effectiveness to any the viceroy might hope to
throw against him. Pezuela abandoned the idea of an immediate Argentine
campaign, and contented himself with maintaining a defensive attitude
on the Bolivian frontier. He managed to repulse the armies which the
Buenos Aireans sent against Bolivia, but it was in vain that he poured
into Chile all the troops he could possibly spare. They were overthrown
and annihilated in the decisive battle of Maipo. The viceroy sent for
help to Spain and New Granada, but Venezuela had risen in insurrection
under Bolivar and Paez; and it was impossible to spare any considerable
number of troops from the Caribbean.
So long, however, as Spanish ships commanded the Pacific, Peru itself
was safe from attack and the viceroy could securely await the arrival of
reinforcements, and then attack Chile where he chose. Happily for the
cause of South American independence, the war-ship of the beginning of
the nineteenth century was not the expensive, complicated, slow-built
machine it has since become. San Martin subordinated everything to the
creation of a fleet. He forced the Argentine and Chilean governments to
furnish him money, and his agents hastened to Europe and North America
to buy ships and engage British and American captains. The Spaniards had
four frigates and thirteen smaller ships, mounting in all three hundred
and thirty guns, while San Martin was able to improvise only three
frigates and as many brigs, mounting about one hundred and eighty
cannon. This disparity of force was more than made up by the superior
skill and experience of the foreign seamen. His admiral was Lord
Cochrane, a Scotchman of noble family, but radical principles and
adventurous disposition. A daring and reckless fighter, inventive and
fertile in resource, he excelled in leading cutting-out expeditions and
surprises. His marvellous activity and the capture by Blanco Encalada of
their largest frigate dismayed the Spanish captains. When Cochrane
sailed up the coast he found the Spaniards huddled under the guns of
Callao castle. Returning to Valparaiso, he reported to San Martin that
he could guarantee the unmolested transport of an army to any point on
the Peruvian coast, and again sailed away for Callao. Though his attempt
to destroy the Spaniards with fire-ships and rockets was unsuccessful,
he captured and sacked several towns and terrorised the Spanish
authorities all along the coast. San Martin after many disappointments
and interruptions succeeded in preparing an army of invasion. For ten
years war had desolated every other part of Spanish South America, while
Peru had remained untouched. At length the conflict was to be
transferred to the very centre of Spanish power.
On September 7, 1820, Lord Cochrane's fleet dropped anchor in a bay near
Pisco, one hundred and fifty miles south of Lima. San Martin's army,
numbering four thousand five hundred Argentines and Chileans,
disembarked without opposition and occupied the fertile, vine-covered
valleys. To undertake a campaign for the conquest of Peru with such a
force seemed absurd. The viceroy's troops were five times as numerous;
at Lima alone he had nearly nine thousand men; as many more were
quartered at Cuzco, Jauja, and Arequipa, besides the six thousand
veterans who guarded the Bolivian frontier against an invasion from
Buenos Aires. The contest was, however, really not so unequal as it
appeared. The Spanish armies were made up of native Peruvians and
Bolivians, with some Venezuelans; sympathisers with the patriot cause
swarmed in their ranks; many were waiting an opportunity to desert; the
viceroy had little control over his generals, and the arrival of the
Argentine army stimulated the activity of the patriot societies in the
Peruvian cities.
From Pisco San Martin detached a force of twelve hundred men under the
command of General Arenales, which ascended the Cordillera, roused the
population of the plateaux immediately back of Lima, and defeated a
detachment under General O'Reilly near Cerro de Pasco. The Indians rose,
but when the Spaniards came up in force Arenales retired to the coast,
leaving his allies to be mercilessly slaughtered. Meanwhile San Martin
with the main body had taken ship at Pisco and, sailing north, landed at
Huacho, seventy miles beyond the capital. His three thousand men could
not hope to succeed in a direct attack on the city, defended by thrice
that number of disciplined troops. On the other hand, the Spanish army
was shut off from the sea; its base was now far back in the interior;
its line of communication might be cut at any moment by other
expeditions like that of Arenales. Lima and the coast towns were
decidedly disaffected. San Martin's plan was to wait patiently until a
rising should compel the Spaniards to retire to the interior, and then
to organise the country and gather an army for the final campaign on the
plateau. He kept, therefore, at a safe distance from the Spaniards; sent
out detachments which scoured the country up to the walls of Lima; and
entered into communication with the conspirators in the city. Crowds of
young enthusiasts hastened out to join him; Cochrane daringly cut out
the frigate _Esmeralda_ under the very guns of Callao castle; an
expedition sent to Tacna, on the extreme southern coast, was
enthusiastically received; and numerous desertions from the Spanish army
culminated in a battalion of Venezuelans coming over in a body. The
viceroy was sorely puzzled. He hesitated to send his army to attack San
Martin, fearing an insurrection or surprise during his absence, and
knowing that defeat meant irretrievable ruin. Really only two courses of
action lay open to the Spaniards--they must either fight San Martin, and
the sooner the better, for he was becoming stronger every day--or they
must abandon Lima and concentrate on their base in the mountains. The
viceroy could not make up his mind to abandon the ancient capital, and
he was reluctant to expose his family to the hardships of a guerilla
warfare in the mountains.
[Illustration: THE MOLE AND HARBOUR OF CALLAO.]
San Martin drew closer and closer, the attitude of the Lima liberals
became more and more threatening, and still Pezuela made no move. News
came of the revolution in Spain and of the overthrow of absolutism, and
all the principal commanders united in demanding his resignation. He had
no alternative, and retired to Spain, while the generals selected one
of their number, La Serna, to succeed him. The new viceroy entered into
negotiations looking toward an amicable accommodation of the whole
question at issue between Spain and her colonies. The Argentine was
nothing loath, well knowing that every month strengthened the patriot
feeling among the coast Peruvians and brought him nearer his goal. San
Martin proposed that South America become a constitutional monarchy and
accept a Bourbon prince as its king in return for a recognition of its
independence--a concession which even the revolutionary Spanish
government could not confirm. The suggestion reflects little credit upon
the political acumen of the great Argentine general. San Martin, in
fact, seems never to have appreciated the motives and instincts which
had pushed the Creoles into rebellion. The revolutionary movement in
South America was in its essence separatist and republican; no monarch,
whether the scion of a European House, or a Bolivar trying to play the
role of a Napoleon, could ever have kept the Spanish colonies together.
The first six months of 1821 were consumed in these fruitless
negotiations, and by this time the position of the Spaniards at Lima had
become untenable. It was necessary for them to retire to the plateau,
where the sturdy natives furnished a supply of excellent recruits and
the mines, fields, and pastures would maintain an army. On July 6, 1821,
La Serna evacuated the capital and retired to Jauja, leaving a
well-provisioned garrison at Callao against the hoped-for arrival of a
fleet from Spain. Even then a dozen well-fought frigates might have
undone all San Martin's work and changed the fate of South America.
Three days later the Argentine general entered the city, and on the 28th
of July, 1821, Peru was proclaimed an independent republic, with San
Martin as temporary dictator under the title of Protector. During the
rest of the year he was occupied with trying to secure the adhesion of
the whole coast, and made no effort to undertake the redemption of the
interior. When the Frenchman Canterac, the most enterprising of the
Spanish commanders, made a descent on Lima, San Martin merely maintained
the defence, being well assured that the enemy must soon retire on
account of want of provisions. But he found himself hampered in
consolidating coast Peru by the fact that he was a foreigner. The
Peruvians were jealous and suspicious, and he feared that troops
recruited among them might turn their arms against him, while his
Argentine officers regarded the country as their own property, and
monopolised the positions of honour and profit to which the Peruvians
thought themselves more justly entitled.
Matters remained virtually at a standstill until the summer of 1822. San
Martin had been unable to make his position stable enough to justify his
devoting himself to military operations, nor had he succeeded in
gathering and equipping an army with which he was willing to undertake a
decisive campaign. Canterac even took the offensive, although he made no
effort to re-occupy permanently the coast plain. Outside help was
necessary, and San Martin, despairing of obtaining it from Chile or the
Argentine, turned his eyes to the north. Bolivar's battles of Boyaca and
Carabobo had redeemed northern Granada and Venezuela in 1819 and 1821,
and he was now advancing toward Quito to complete the expulsion of the
Spaniards from that viceroyalty. With a force of Colombians Sucre went
to Guayaquil by sea and climbed to the Ecuador plateau. Defeated and
driven back on his first attempt, he was reinforced by a division sent
by San Martin, and renewed the effort with better success. Although
Bolivar had in the meantime been checked in his southward march on Quito
by the loyalists of southern Colombia, Sucre alone destroyed the Spanish
army which had held Ecuador for so many years. The battle of Pichincha,
fought in May, 1822, left Bolivar and Sucre free to employ their
numerous and well-disciplined troops in completing the liberation of
Peru and Bolivia.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO IN LIMA.]
Bolivar joined his victorious lieutenant at Quito, incorporated Ecuador
with his new republic of Colombia, and proceeded overland to Guayaquil,
where San Martin lost no time in going to meet him for a conference. The
Argentine expected to find as unselfish a patriot as himself, but the
"liberator" was not single-minded. He had formed plans for his own glory
and aggrandisement to the accomplishment of which San Martin might be an
obstacle. When the latter broached the subject of a joint campaign
against the Spaniards in Peru and Bolivia, Bolivar gave him no
satisfaction, and evaded the Argentine's noble offer to serve in a
subordinate capacity. The silent soldier made no protest and uttered
no reproaches. Confiding not even in his closest friends, he calmly
considered his plight on his way back to Lima. His situation in Peru,
bad already, would be made ten times worse by Bolivar's intrigues.
Seeing that he could be of no further service to the cause of South
American independence, he formally resigned his authority to a national
congress, deliberately sacrificing his own future for the cause he
loved, but leaving behind him a name untarnished by any suspicion of
self-seeking or personal ambition.
Bolivar waited in vain for the expected invitation to come with his
veterans. The leaders in Peru did not propose to jeopard their own
supremacy. They thought they were strong enough to whip the Spaniards by
themselves, and made great efforts to drill and equip an efficient army.
By the end of the year four thousand men under the command of Alvarado
were sent to the southern coast to make an attempt to reach Lake
Titicaca and thereby get between the Spanish armies. It failed before
the astonishing energy of the Spanish general, Valdez, who by forced
marches reached the pass which the Peruvians were trying to climb, and
taking up a strong position, beat them back with great slaughter.
Alvarado retreated, but was caught by Valdez and completely routed;
hardly a third of the army escaped to the seashore. The news of this
defeat brought about a change of government at Lima. A revolution,
headed by the principal officers, made Riva Aguero, the leader of the
Peruvian liberals, president, while General Santa Cruz, a Bolivian,
received chief command of the forces, in place of Arenales. Word was
sent to Bolivar that his offer of help would be accepted; and another
Peruvian army was recruited. Before the six thousand men promised by
Bolivar had arrived, the Peruvians had regained confidence. With the aid
of a London loan, the patriots got seven thousand soldiers ready for
service, and in May, 1823, five thousand men under the command of Santa
Cruz sailed from Callao for southern Peru. This time they advanced so
promptly that the Spanish generals could not get to the passes in time
to dispute the way. Santa Cruz entered La Paz and defeated the first
army which came against him. But the two main Spanish bodies hastened up
from Cuzco and Charcas, outmanoeuvred Santa Cruz, united their forces,
and routed his army in a panic, not a fourth ever reaching the seaboard.
Shortly after Santa Cruz's departure on this ill-fated expedition, Sucre
arrived at Lima with the first instalment of the promised Colombian
auxiliaries. The Spanish general, Canterac, had concentrated a large
army at Jauja and descended on the capital; Lima was denuded of Peruvian
troops; the government helpless against the Spaniards or Sucre. The
Colombian was made commander-in-chief, and retiring to the
fortifications of Callao before Canterac's overwhelming numbers,
procured Riva Aguero's deposition and the nomination of one of his own
tools as nominal president, while he sent off an urgent message to
Bolivar to come in person. Canterac, after holding Lima for a few weeks,
went back to the mountains, and Bolivar himself landed at Callao on the
1st of September, almost at the very moment when Santa Cruz's army was
getting involved in that snarl out of which it never extricated itself.
The news of its destruction left Bolivar undisputed master of the
situation, and in February the submissive rump of the Peruvian
parliament conferred upon him an absolute dictatorship. He now devoted
all the wonderful energy with which nature had endowed him to
preparation for a campaign which he meant to be final; and united ten
thousand men under his command, two-thirds of whom were Colombian
veterans and the rest Peruvians, Argentines, and Chileans who fought for
the sheer love of fighting. His officers were the pick of South America,
men who had proven their bravery and skill on all the hundred
battle-fields from Venezuela to Chile. With such a force he did not
hesitate to attack the Spaniards, although the latter were nearly twice
as numerous.
Suddenly, however, his plans were seriously disturbed by a revolt of the
garrison in Callao castle--Argentines and Chileans who had not received
their pay. The mutineers hoisted the Spanish flag and sent word to
Canterac that he might come in and take possession. This event produced
a great sensation at Lima. Many citizens who distrusted Bolivar or were
fearful of the final result vacillated in their allegiance. Even men who
had been prominent liberals went over to the royalists. Bolivar
abandoned the capital and removed his base of operations to Trujillo,
three hundred miles north. But discouragement gave place to confident
enthusiasm when news came that the Spanish generals were fighting among
themselves. Olaneta, the renegade Argentine, who commanded in Bolivia,
had quarrelled with La Serna, whom he regarded as a pestilent liberal
and an enemy of the absolute pretensions of the Spanish king. The
viceroy sent Valdez against him, and some hard fighting had taken place,
when this fratricidal war was interrupted by the news of Bolivar's
preparations.
[Illustration: MILK-WOMAN OF LIMA ON HORSEBACK.]
Though just recovering from a dangerous illness, Bolivar lost no time in
taking advantage of Olaneta's revolt. His army numbered nine thousand
men; it was well supplied with cavalry, and the troops received their
liberal pay punctually. The patriots advanced rapidly and unopposed over
the Maritime Cordillera, covered by a cloud of Peruvian guerillas, under
whose protection Sucre marked out the daily route and brought in
provisions. The city of Pasco, just south of that transverse range which
forms the northern limit of the great Peruvian plateau, was reached and
Bolivar's army hastened south along the western shore of the lake of
Reyes to the marshy plain of Junin at its southern end, where he met
Canterac hurrying up from Jauja with a slightly inferior force.
When Bolivar caught sight of the royalist army he held his infantry back
in a defensible position, and sent his cavalry toward the enemy.
Canterac rashly charged in person at the head of all his cavalry, but
instead of the easy victory he expected, his squadrons were thrown into
some disorder when they encountered the patriot lancers. The latter,
however, were compelled to retreat, and fled into a defile, followed by
the royalists. The royalists did not notice that a Peruvian squadron had
been drawn aside, and scarcely were they in the defile than they were
charged from the rear. The fugitive patriots in front rallied, and the
disordered and huddled royalists, caught between two fires, could make
no effective resistance. They were quickly cut to pieces and driven from
the field. The whole affair had not lasted three-quarters of an hour;
the numbers engaged did not much exceed two thousand; the royalist loss
was only two hundred and fifty, yet this battle of Junin produced almost
decisive results. As the fugitive cavalry rode up to the protection of
the muskets of the infantry, the latter retreated. Though Canterac was
not pursued, he did not stop in his precipitate flight until he had
nearly reached Cuzco, five hundred miles away, losing two thousand men
by desertion on the road.
Leaving Sucre in command of the army, which now threatened Cuzco itself,
Bolivar returned to Lima to look after his political interests, collect
money, and urge the sending of reinforcements from Colombia. La Serna
called in all his outlying divisions, while Sucre confidently scattered
his forces. He underestimated the strength of the royalists, for to his
consternation La Serna suddenly broke out of Cuzco at the head of ten
thousand men, and before Sucre could concentrate, his opponent was
threatening his rear and manoeuvring to cut him off from his base.
Happily, the royalists were compelled to march in a semicircle, and
Sucre, by desperate exertions, united his forces and cut along the
radius, coming in sight of La Serna just as the latter had succeeded in
getting between him and the road to Jauja. Sucre's position was
desperate. The valleys to the north were rising in favour of the
royalists; a patriot column advancing from that direction to reinforce
him was driven back; his provisions and ammunition were beginning to
fail. Sucre's army was La Serna's real objective. Even if he could
shake off the pursuit, another march to Lima would be as barren of
results as Canterac's last descent, and to leave the Colombian army at
Guamanga would expose Cuzco and Bolivia to invasion. During three days
the opposing armies marched and counter-marched among the ravines on the
west bank of the Pampas River, and finally Sucre took the desperate
resolution of crossing the deep gorge in which the river runs in order
to reach the high grounds on the other side. He managed to get his main
body over safely, but the Spaniards fell upon his rearguard, killing
four hundred men and capturing one of his two cannon. The two armies
were now opposite each other on the high, narrow, and broken plateau
which lies between the Eastern and Central Cordilleras, separated only
by the gorge of the Pampas. They marched in plain sight of each other,
the royalists along the slopes of the Central Cordillera, while the
patriots skirted the foothills of the Eastern. Sucre hoped to outrun the
enemy and reach the main road to Jauja, but La Serna again outflanked
him; he offered battle, but the viceroy had determined to engage under
conditions where not a patriot could escape, and by skilful manoeuvres
the royal army succeeded in getting into the protection of the eastern
range at a point north of Sucre. Irretrievably cut off from the Jauja
road, convinced by his previous failures that he could not better his
position by any further manoeuvres, the Colombian general resolved again
to offer battle, although this time upon a field chosen by La Serna. He
ceased marching and allowed the enemy to dispose their forces at will.
On the 8th of September, 1824, La Serna's army, numbering eight thousand
five hundred men--of whom only five hundred were Spaniards--encamped on
the high grounds overlooking the little plain of Ayacucho, which sloped
gently eastward to the little village of Quinua. To the left the level
ground was bounded by a deep and precipitate ravine, and on the right by
a valley which, though less difficult, was impracticable for fighting.
Sucre's army lay at the eastern extremity of the plain, at the edge of
the slope which rises from Quinua. Behind was no cover to re-form in if
defeated. His forces were a little less than six thousand, and he had
only one cannon against the enemy's eleven, but three-fourths of his men
were the pick of the Colombian veterans and the rest Peruvians of the
highest spirit. Tired of interminable marching through the mountains,
isolated in a hostile region, starvation staring them in the face,
confident of their superiority, man for man, to the royalists, and led
by fiery young generals,--Sucre was only thirty-one and his chief
lieutenant twenty-five,--they welcomed the opportunity to fight it out
once for all, face to face and man to man.
The morning sun of the 9th rose radiant behind the mountains where the
Spaniards lay encamped. Sucre deployed his army in the open plain,
riding down the line exclaiming, "Soldiers, on your deeds this day
depends the fate of South America," while the Spanish columns descended
in perfect order from the heights. La Serna realised that his men would
not fight with the same spirit as the patriots and that defeat might be
followed by wholesale desertion, but he counted on his artillery and the
reserve he had left on the high ground as a sure refuge in case of a
reverse.
The story of the battle is soon told. The patriots advanced to meet the
Spanish attack; musketry volleys on both sides did terrific execution,
and the two armies met bayonet in hand. On the left the Spanish columns
were unable to make any impression on the Colombian infantry, and while
the conflict was still undecided the royalist cavalry rashly charged,
hoping to strike a deciding blow. But they were met by a counter-charge
of the patriot squadrons and rolled back in defeat. The whole left of
the royalist army dispersed, and such was the confusion that the
impetuously pursuing Colombians reached the Spanish camp and spiked the
artillery, defeating on their way the enemy's centre. In the meantime
the Spanish right under Valdez had outflanked the Peruvians who held
that part of the line and driven them back, but before he could reach
the patriot centre the battle had been decided. Attacked by the
victorious cavalry, Valdez's men were cut to pieces, and by one o'clock
in the after noon the Spanish army, except the reserve under Canterac,
had ceased to exist as an organised body. Of the royalists fourteen
hundred were dead and seven hundred wounded, while the patriots had lost
six hundred wounded and three hundred dead. The viceroy was wounded and
a prisoner, his men deserting and dispersing by hundreds. Canterac sued
for terms, and that afternoon fourteen generals, five hundred and
sixty-eight officers, and three thousand two hundred privates became
prisoners of war. Never was a victory more complete and decisive than
Ayacucho. The war for independence was over. Only under Olaneta in far
southern Bolivia and at Callao castle did a Spaniard remain under arms.
Sucre marched to Cuzco, where he rested and refitted and then went on to
Puno and La Paz. Olaneta's troops deserted as the Colombian approached,
and the last of the Spanish generals fell at the hands of his own men as
he was bravely trying to suppress a mutiny. Callao castle held out for
thirteen months, and with its surrender was hauled down the last Spanish
ensign which floated on the South American mainland.