BUENOS AYRES.
_February 24th._—On Saturday, I accompanied a large party of ladies
and gentlemen, Americans and English, in a visit to the scene of the
late battle. It is called indiscriminately, “Monte Caseros,” from
the name of the country-house at which Rosas took position in
meeting the enemy, and “Moron,” from that of the nearest hamlet, a
mile or two distant.
We were off at an early hour. The morning was brilliant, and
delightful in its freshness: almost too cool, in contrast with the
excessive heat of the first few days after my arrival. The road we
took led past several country-seats in the suburbs, at which the
victorious troops were still quartered. Their horses and camp-fires
had made sad havoc with the shrubberies and plantations of these;
many of the trees being terribly barked by the former, while their
limbs had been stripped off and cut up for fuel by the latter.
Bivouac after bivouac, and rude encampment after encampment,
extended miles beyond Palermo; while the road on either side, and
often in its centre, presented the aspect of a continued slaughter
house—the hoofs, horns, hides and entrails of the animals daily
slain for the subsistence of the soldiery, being scattered about
every where, and polluting the air with their offensive effluvia.
The whole distance of fifteen miles, gave evidence of the desolating
effects of the retreat of the vanquished, and of the marauding
presence of the victors.
At the end of twelve miles, we came upon the military village of
Santos Lugares, composed of brick huts, the regular cantonment of
the army, from which Rosas had led his force of twenty thousand to
Monte Caseros, on the evening of the 1st instant. This seemed now,
literally, a “deserted village:” every building being vacant, with
the appearance of having suffered utter pillage. It has its church,
and an extensive common, or green, ornamented at one point by a
clump of ombu, a species of gum-tree—the chief emblem of the
country. Shortly after passing this, we caught view in the distance
of the white tower of Monte Caseros, the head-quarters of Rosas at
the commencement of the battle. Its mirador, or observatory,
commands a view of the surrounding region; and from it he watched
the advance of Urquiza, and for a time, the progress of the
engagement. He then descended to the field, and took part in the
fight, till it was evident the day was lost. Persuaded of this, he
seized a cartridge from the box of a common soldier; breaking it in
pieces, he blackened his face with the powder, and mounting a
magnificent horse, in readiness near by, succeeded in making his
escape amid the dust and uproar of the general rout. He made his way
without being recognized, to the residence of the British minister
in the city. There his daughter joined him, and under the guidance
of that gentleman both sought refuge at midnight, in the disguise
before mentioned, on board the flag-ship of Admiral Henderson.
Evidences of the conflict, or rather of the flight and pursuit, now
began rapidly to multiply, in tattered portions of clothing and in
accoutrements—caps, sword-belts, cartridge-boxes, bayonet-sheaths,
cuirasses, and broken musical instruments, and drums. What seemed
the most singular part of this camp equipage, was the quantity of
letters and manuscript papers, scattered widely and for great
distances over the ground. Soon the more revolting spectacle of a
dead body presented itself here and there, naked and ghastly,
blackening in the sun, in a frightful state of decomposition, and
tainting the whole atmosphere by its impurity. These multiplied
rapidly as we advanced; none of the slain of either party having yet
been buried, excepting such as have been sought for and discovered
by personal friends. The brick walls of the country-house and those
of a large circular dove-cote, of the same material, whitewashed,
are a good deal marked and shattered by balls both of cannon and
musketry. After Rosas had left the observatory and the house, a
strong party of his officers kept possession of them. When the
battle seemed to be given up, it was supposed by the victors that
these, like others outside, had surrendered; but on attempting to
enter, they were met by a volley of musketry, with the cry of “Viva
Rosas!” This led to an immediate onslaught by the assailants; and
every man within, amounting to thirty or forty, was at once put to
the sword. Till within a day or two past, their bodies lay piled
upon each other as they had thus fallen, upon the stairs and
platforms of the tower; and since having been dragged out, still lie
scattered over the lawn in nakedness and putrefaction. Two or three
bodies are stretched on the roof of the dove-house also, as they
fell on being shot down in its defence.
Though the engagement commenced at daybreak and continued three or
four hours, the number of the slain is thought not to exceed three
hundred; and the wounded, not more than six. Still these numbers are
quite sufficient, where father met son and brother met brother, in
deadly fight. While we were on the tower, two brothers happened
there, and pointed out to us the positions of the two forces, at
different times during the engagement. Both were in the battle, one
with the troops of Rosas, and the other with those of Urquiza.
With the exception of the objects mentioned, there was little to
interest; and, after strolling around for an hour or two, we
returned to the shade of the ombu trees of Santos Lugares, to
partake of an ample lunch, provided by the ladies of the party. One
result of the excursion, was the opportunity it afforded me of
gaining my first sight of what is here termed the ‘camp;’ the flat
open country of the pampas, or plains, which extend hundreds of
leagues, with a surface more level and less wooded than that of the
prairies of the West with us: a vast sea of grass and thistles,
without roads or enclosures, and without a habitation, except at
long intervals. Nothing breaks the unvarying outline, unless it be
now and then an ombu, rising on the distant horizon, like a ship at
sea. Travellers upon these plains, whether on horseback or in
carriages, like voyagers on the ocean, direct their course over the
trackless expanse, by compass.
The 19th was appointed for the public entry of Urquiza into the
capital, with the entire allied force, cavalry, infantry, and
artillery, to the number of twenty thousand. Rain during the
preceding night, laid the dust and freshened the air. The morning
was pure, cool and pleasant, somewhat obscured by clouds till noon,
but after that hour, clear and brilliant. Every street and every
house was gay with fluttering flags and the banners of all civilized
nations, and the whole city in gala dress. I had invitations to the
balconies of several private houses in different streets through
which the procession would pass; but preferred a roving commission,
with the advantage of being able to change at pleasure my point of
view. I chose a stand at an angle of the Plaza Victoria, or place of
victory, the principal square in the city, near a triumphal arch
thrown over the street through which the procession would _débouche_
upon the Plaza. It was the best point for observation; giving a near
view of the chief officers and troops, and commanding in coup d’œil
the masses of people in the open square; the decorations of the
monument of victory in its centre; and of the public buildings
facing it, as well as of the crowded balconies and flat-topped roofs
of the surrounding houses, thronged with spectators of all ages and
both sexes in holiday attire.
Urquiza as captain-general and commander-in-chief, with his staff,
headed the columns. These had formed at Palermo, the cavalry being
eight, and the infantry and artillery twelve abreast. The
chieftain’s dress and that of his staff was not full uniform. With a
military coat, he wore a round beaver hat and scarlet hatband, and
held a riding-whip in his hand as if on a hunt. The red hatband,
besides its demi-savage look, gave offence, it is said, to the
Buenos Ayreans, by reminding them of the thraldom of which it had
been made a badge under Rosas; and which, with the waistcoat and
every thing of the same color, they had indignantly and with
abhorrence thrown off, the moment they found themselves free to do
so. It is also said that every demonstration of popular feeling, by
shouts and vivas, had been interdicted; and there was little
enthusiasm manifested in this way. Bouquets, however, were showered
upon the conqueror in great abundance, and his hands and those of
his immediate suite were filled with such as had been picked up and
handed to them. It struck me, notwithstanding, that there was
nothing very gracious in the expression of countenance or manner of
the hero: that something had gone amiss, and he was only tolerating
with decent civility the courtesies shown him. He declined to
dismount in the city, and continued the ride in circuit to Palermo
again. The cavalry, constituting the principal body of the troops,
in the Gaucho dress of red flannel shirts and cheripas, white cotton
pantalets, and red caps worn _à la brigand_, had all the appearance
of so many wild Arabs, clothed in red in place of white. They were
barefooted, and unshaven and unshorn; and varied in complexion, from
the red and white of the Saxon, here and there, to the jet of Congo.
Four hours were occupied by the procession in passing a single
point; though the cavalry, towards the close, rode at full charge,
when, especially, they bore an aspect as wild as that of the desert
itself. General Lopez, the Governor or President of the Province of
Corrientes, second to Urquiza in command, appeared in full military
costume, as did Baron Caxias, chief of the Brazilian division. Both
were magnificently mounted.
The booming of cannon from various points was heard during this
triumphal march through the city; and a stationary band in front of
the cathedral played at intervals, as the regimental bands, one
after another, passed beyond hearing. In the evening, the arcades
surrounding the eastern and southern sides of the Plaza, the cabildo
or town hall fronting it on one side, the cathedral at one corner,
and the monument of victory in the centre, were illuminated; and for
an hour and more, there was a good display of fireworks. The
remaining days of the week were proclaimed holidays, and the
decorations in flags, the illuminations, and music at night were
continued.
Two days ago, a grand Te Deum, in commemoration of the overthrow of
Rosas, was celebrated in the cathedral, in presence of Urquiza and
of the newly appointed provisional government; the officers of the
allied armies; and of all the dignitaries of the church. An immense
crowd was brought together by the interest of the occasion itself,
and by the spectacle presented in so large an assemblage of persons
of official rank and power. The ordinary services were accompanied
by a rhapsody in the form of a sermon, delivered by a young
ecclesiastic, who, from having been chosen for orator on such an
occasion, must have some pretension to talent and eloquence. I have
seen a copy of his discourse in Spanish, and will give a hasty
translation of some of its passages which throw light upon the
popular view of the public character and government of Rosas; and
give proof also of the adulations showered upon the Conqueror. The
address occupied more than an hour in the delivery, and is at least
a curiosity as a sermon. The text from the Vulgate, was announced in
Latin, and was the opening verse of the song of Moses after the
destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea:
“Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously:
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”
The introduction, written in Dellacruscan style, and delivered with
the action of the stage, consists of all manner of apostrophes—to
the Plata, to Liberty, to Peace, to the Argentines, and to the
Virgin Mary, for aid in the office of his ministry. Two general
points are then presented,—one the duty of thanksgiving for a
deliverance from evil; the other of thanksgiving for blessings
conferred. Under the first he institutes a parallel between the
rejoicings of Rome on the fall of Nero, and of those due from Buenos
Ayreans on the overthrow of Rosas: thus—“Tell me, was it right for
the Romans, adorning themselves with garlands of flowers and clothed
with gladness, to hail with hallelujahs the jubilee of their
deliverance; to throw open their temples and offer incense to their
gods in testimony of their gratitude, when they saw the dead body of
the most barbarous of their sovereigns—that monster, whose cruelty
was not satiated with the blood even of his own mother, and whose
corruption made him regardless of the most sacred obligations of the
marriage tie? Was it not right, I say, that the Roman people should
hymn songs of thankfulness before the altars of their gods, in view
of the still palpitating remains of Nero, that impersonation of
cruelty, who, seated on a mount, instead of weeping like the
prophets over the destruction of the capital set on fire by himself,
rejoiced in the death-shrieks of its inhabitants? I do not believe,
gentlemen, that any of you condemn this conduct of the Romans—do I
say condemn? I know that you justify, you praise, you applaud it;
and if it was right, if it was laudable, if it was praiseworthy in
the Romans gratefully to acknowledge, and joyfully to give thanks to
their gods for a deliverance from the tyranny of Nero, is it not
equally so in us Argentines to offer to the true God the incense of
our praise for liberating us from the despotism of Rosas—that
tyrant, that wild beast, that scandal of our nation, that shame upon
humanity, that scourge of society and of religion, that minotaur,
more thirsty for blood than him of Crete who fed on human victims?
Yes! all of you will confess that it is just—and the more just as he
was more cruel than even Nero. How more so? Can it be possible that
there ever was a man as cruel as he, much less more so? Sirs, the
lengthened series of eighteen hundred years did not, indeed, produce
such a man: but the epoch of the barbarous Dictator of the Argentine
Republic had not yet arrived. The nineteenth century, great in all
its aspects in the annals of ages, was to be conspicuous by the
production of this monster of cruelty. Yes, gentlemen, he was not
only as cruel, but more cruel than the oppressor of the Romans.
“Let us make the comparison. But first, Argentines, rise from the
places you occupy—rise, and make haste to close the temple doors
that no foreigner come in; and if any such should already have
entered, supplicate them to retire, that they hear not of the
horrors perpetrated by a son of our soil. Yes! rise, hasten quick,
fly! But why? Alas! oh sorrow!—stay! stay! it is too late: the
clamorous echo of the cry raised by his cruelty has resounded to the
ends of the earth. I retract my call, and beg you, Argentines, to
fly—yes, fly to the portals of the temple: but let it be to open
them widely from side to side, that entrance may be given to the
inhabitants of the whole world—if it were possible, of the entire
universe—to be witnesses of our reclamation, and hear the protest we
solemnly make in the presence of the heavens and of the earth,
before the altars of our God: Neighboring Republics! Foreign
nations! all ye people of the earth! know, and transmit to your
descendants from age to age that the children of the Plata repudiate
this monster; we despoil him of the prerogatives of an Argentine; we
banish him from our fatherland; and by the unanimous vote of the
entire Republic, sentence him to wander from place to place, and
from land to land; and, like Cain the fratricide, to carry the mark
of his crime branded on his brow, that his own ignominy may be the
expiation of his transgressions.
“Yes! I again say, Rosas was more cruel than Nero. Let us analyze
the facts in the case. Why is Nero represented in history as the
greatest tyrant among sovereigns? Hear Tacitus: ‘He was,’ says the
historian, ‘the assassin of his mother, of his brother, of his
tutor, and of an immense number of Christians. He set Rome on fire.’
What horrors! and the tyrant of the Argentines, did he perpetrate
such enormities? Some of them he did—others he did not. But the
credit of omitting to perpetrate those which he did not commit is to
be attributed to a dissimilarity of circumstances, not to a
difference in moral principle. Rosas did not sacrifice his mother,
but it was because she did not threaten to deprive him of his power.
He did not sacrifice his brothers, because none of them attempted to
snatch from him the reins of government: or if they did, they fled
beyond his reach. He did not sacrifice his tutor, because he never
had one; but he had an instructor in political economy and a patron
in his early public career, and him he did assassinate. Oh! sad
remembrance! Sirs, you all know the horrible death of Maza,
President of the House of Representatives,—that noble patriot and
good man, who was murdered in the very temple of the laws: not in
its vestibule, but in the very sanctum sanctorum!
“And did Rosas sacrifice a large number of Christians? Alas! would
I were not under the necessity of answering this question. Well
then—I will not do it; but answer for me, ye numerous auditors who
listen to me. Speak, ye many widows, whose hearts, as ye listen to
my words, are broken with sorrow—let the tears speak with which
you have been fed till the present day. Speak, ye fathers, who
still pour out your grief in sighs upon your children’s tombs.
Speak, ye numerous orphans, who, while embracing with kisses the
fathers of your love, have suddenly beheld them expire beneath the
point of the dagger! Do thou, O city of Buenos Ayres—do thou
speak: and speak every province, speak every town, speak every
family of the Republic! Oh, thou year of 1840! O fatal epoch! What
days of darkness, what days of mourning, what days of tears! your
memory will forever embitter our existence. Ah! yes—in every
street, in every house, in every room, we then stumbled over some
victim—innocent victim, for, to be innocent was, in the eyes of
that wicked one, the greatest of crimes. Humanity is horrified by
the frightful truth! The story seems like a fable, but we
ourselves are witnesses to the facts. Had the blood which was then
shed, been mingled with the waters of the mighty river rolling
beside us, they would have reddened to crimson. Death itself
seemed exhausted in the execution of such cruelty; and the dead
themselves, could they speak, would exclaim, ‘How horrible!’
“And were they Christians only that he immolated? Nero did not slay
his priests; at least, history does not say that he attempted it.
And Rosas, did he? Ah! that tyrant not only attempted it, but placed
the seal upon the record of his impieties in the blood of the
anointed of the Lord. That blood still cries to Heaven for
vengeance, and like the infernal furies, will follow and torment the
guilty criminal.
“And Rosas? did he burn the city? Would he had destroyed it rather
than have prolonged our martyrdom. But in this there would have been
too much humanity for him. His object was to protract our agony the
better to enjoy the misery.
“Finally, what were the articles of Nero’s religious faith? You all
know that he was a Pagan—how then could it be strange that he should
persecute his adversaries? And Rosas, was he likewise a Pagan? Would
that he had been!—that he had been so openly! His wickedness was not
so great that he did not call himself a Catholic. Ah! unhappy man,
thou art accountable for the abuses introduced to the church; for
thou, like another Henry VIII. of England, didst constitute thyself
the priest, and the bishop, and the Pope of the Republic. If there
has been demoralization in society, thou art accountable to the
Great Judge for it; for thou hast interfered with the most sacred
rights of religion, education, and laws; and for twenty years hast
set back the civilization of the Republic, and made the relentless
knife the only inducement to excel. But, it is enough! Thanks to the
valiant, the all-powerful Urquiza! the country now reposes in
tranquillity: we are free from the despotism of the odious tyrant.
“And is it not right that we should be thankful to the Almighty for
the benefits received at his hands? We have attained our liberty.
Oh! incomparable good! Oh! gift of inestimable value! And to whom
shall we give our thanks, if not to Thee, O Father of mercies?—to
whom if not to Thee, O Giver of all joy. To Thee, therefore, O
Fountain of all felicity, we give thanks! But likewise to thy name,
O great Urquiza! to thee, whose name will be immortal; to thee our
gratitude will be eternal, and the echo of our acknowledgments will
be heard, even to the ends of the earth. The heart of every
Argentine will be a temple from which thou wilt receive the sweet
incense of our affection; and tradition will for ever transmit to
our descendants the name of him who has restored to us our
liberties. Most excellent sir, we salute thee as the morning star of
the happy day of freedom that has dawned upon our country. We
acclaim thee as our Washington! The Washington of the Argentine
Republic! What a glory for you, sir! Argentines! I call your
attention to your deliverer: fix your gaze on that bold champion.
Let your modesty, sir, suffer me in the transports of my gratitude
to express the sentiments of my heart. Yes, Argentines, fix again, I
say, your gaze on that brave warrior. See you those scintillating
eyes beaming with humanity? they have suffered prolonged vigils for
your liberty. Behold that capacious brow—even yet bronzed by the
suns of the camp! it has been absorbed in the profoundest
meditations for your liberty! Do you perceive those features full of
expressions of goodness? they have suffered the rigors of heat and
the inclemencies of the seasons for your liberty. Witness ye that
elevated and finely modelled breast, the temple of a magnanimous
heart? It has been exposed to the bullet and the lance of the
tyrant, for your liberty. Do you observe the nervous arm and
powerful hand, so well known in battle? they have wielded the sword
valiantly for your liberty: yes, for our liberty, he voluntarily
renounced his sleep, to give his mind, day and night, to deep
thought; for our liberty, he sacrificed his own comfort and
well-being; for our liberty he hazarded his life! For our liberty he
has suffered hunger, thirst, and conflicts; and to achieve it,
impetuous rivers have appeared to him but smooth rivulets, enormous
deserts like populous plains, the longest marches but short
excursions, and the greatest obstacles the merest trifles. What
courage! what heroism! what patriotism!
“What fortune is ours, Argentines, to have a man of so much
excellence, in him whom Providence has sent to liberate us, and give
to us the guarantee of a constitutional government. Eternal Father,
God of all goodness, what thanksgiving shall we render to Thee for
this evidence of Thy mercy?”
With this fulsome rhapsody, terminates the second act of the
political drama of the Plata.
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