# The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 44

CHAPTER XXLIV.
THE WAR IN QUITO.
1821-1822.
After the battle of Boyacá, the defeated Royalists had retreated to the Highland Provinces of Pasto and Patia, in the south of Columbia, and were there strongly reinforced by Aymerich, Captain-General of Quito. General Valdez was sent against them, with three battalions of infantry, one of which was the Albion. On the 6th June, 1820, Valdez was attacked by 1,100 infantry under Calzada at the town of Pitayo to the north-west of Popayán. His vanguard was driven in, but the Albion re-established the fight, and decided the day by an impetuous charge with the bayonet; the Royalists retreated to Patia.
Valdez being reinforced, then occupied the city of Popayán with an army of 2,300 men, which was soon reduced to 1,000 by sickness and desertion. Then in January, 1821, in obedience to positive orders from Bolívar, he marched into the Province of Pasto. The Patianos, as was their custom, gave him free passage, but closed in upon his rear, cutting his communications with Popayán. He marched upon the city of Pasto, surrounded by enemies. Colonel Garcia who had succeeded Calzada in command, waited for him with 850 men in the pass of Jenay, and on the 2nd February, completely defeated him. The Albion battalion suffered very heavily in this action, and it was only the armistice of Trujillo which saved Valdez from total destruction.
On the resumption of hostilities, General Torres, who ​had succeeded Valdez in command, was forced by Garcia to shut himself up in Popayán. He afterwards marched with 1,800 men upon Pasto, but suffered such heavy losses by sickness and desertion, that he was compelled to retreat, and in August he abandoned Popayán.
The Royalists of Patia and Pasto, aided from Quito, might have prolonged the war indefinitely but that the operations of San Martin and Cochrane threw their base open to attack, and the revolution of Guayaquil cut off all communication between Quito and the Pacific. Bolívar saw this, and as Quito was not included in the armistice of Trujillo, determined to attack from the South as well as from the North, and at the same time open for himself a road to the Pacific. Looking about for an officer to whom he could entrust the undertaking, he chose General Sucre, who was at that time Minister of War of the Republic of Columbia.
Sucre was a native of Cumaná, had received a scientific education, and had served from his early youth in all the campaigns of the revolution of Venezuela, under Miranda, Piar, and Bolívar. Bolívar said of him:—
"Sucre has the best organized head in all Columbia." San Martin, who never met him, wrote of him in after years, that he was one of the most noteworthy men produced by the Republic of Columbia, and of greater military skill than even Bolívar himself.
The mission confided to Sucre was both political and military. He was to aid the new State of Guayaquil against the Royalists, and was to induce her to join the Republic of Columbia. At Popayán he collected a thousand of the dispersed troops, and reached Guayaquil by sea in May, 1821. He found that the majority of the people were in favour of union with Peru, and that they had already suffered defeat in their first brush with the Royalists.
At this juncture the flotilla and a battalion of native troops revolted in the name of the King. Sucre put down the movement, and thus became master of the situation, and commander-in-chief of all the forces.
​At the head of a combined army, Sucre then marched against the Royalists, who under Aymerich were descending the mountain slopes from Quito, in two separate columns. One of these columns he totally defeated at Yahuachí on the 19th August, and compelled the other, which was led by Aymerich himself, to return to Quito with heavy loss. He then ascended the slopes of Chimborazo and occupied the plateau of Ambato, but was here attacked by Colonel Gonzalez with very superior forces, and was completely defeated, with a loss of 300 killed and 640 prisoners. He himself was wounded, and returned to his former position with a remnant of his force. Here he was fortunately reinforced by a battalion of 500 Columbian infantry, and as Aymerich did not follow up the victory, held his ground, till on the 20th November he arranged an armistice of ninety days.
At this time the Royalists, whose total force of regular troops amounted to 3,000 men, in the Provinces of Cuenca, Quito, and Pasto, received a reinforcement of 800 men, under General Murgeón, who had been appointed Viceroy of New Granada on the death of Sámano. Murgeón had arrived from Europe at Puerto Cabello with a smaller force, which being increased by La Torre, he led across the Isthmus to Panama, whence he went by sea to Atacames, and from there marched for sixty miles through a dense forest and then over the Cordillera to Quito, where he arrived on the 24th December, 1821, and took the command.
When New Granada was secure, Bolívar wrote to O'Higgins that:—"The Army of Columbia was about to march on Quito with orders to co-operate with the Argentine-Chileno Army in their operations against Lima," but after that, affairs in the North distracted his attention. After the fall of Cartagena, he wrote to San Martin, proposing to take 4,000 men across the isthmus, and by sea to Peru, to aid him in crushing the Royalists in the centre of their power, leaving them in their positions on the equatorial Andes till afterwards. But the defeat suffered by Sucre, ​and the arrival of Murgeón, determined him first of all to prosecute the war in the south of Columbia.
Under the name of the "Columbian Guard," Bolívar had organized an army, with which he incorporated at Popayán the remnants of the division of General Torres, raising his total force to about 3,000 men. During his march through a hostile country, he was compelled to leave 1,000 sick in the hospitals, and with the rest reached the frontiers of Quito on the 24th March, 1822. Avoiding a conflict with the Pastusos, which had so often proved fatal to the Patriot arms, he turned to the right and tried to find a pass over the River Guáitara, a mountain torrent whose course lies at the bottom of an almost impassable abyss. Finding one suspension bridge cut, he marched to the left in search of another, and on the 7th April came upon the Royalist army under Garcia, strongly posted between the river and the volcano of Pasto. It was already past noon, but Bolívar seeing that to retreat was impossible, attacked the enemy at once. He drew up his army on the plain of Bomboná, and sent a column against the left wing of the enemy, where the ground presented fewer difficulties than on their right and centre. This column being repulsed, then attacked the centre of the position and was almost annihilated in the attempt to force its way through an abatis which covered this part of the Royalist line. Meantime another column, directed against the right wing of the Royalists, had detached a battalion of light infantry, which climbed the face of the mountain and secured a commanding position on the flank of the enemy, on which Bolívar made another attack upon the centre with a battalion drawn from the reserve. This attack was also repulsed, but when night came on the Royalists hurriedly retreated, abandoning their artillery. The Patriots were left masters of the field, but it was a Phyrric victory, they had lost 600 men in killed and wounded, while the loss of the Royalists was not over 250.
Bolívar remained for eight days encamped on the plateau of Bomboná, and then retreated, leaving 300 sick and ​wounded behind him. During the retreat his losses were very heavy, but at Patia he received reinforcements from Popayán. The climate and the people were both against him; two months he remained inactive, uncertain what to do, when news reached him that Sucre, aided by a contingent of Argentine-Peruvian troops, sent to his assistance by San Martin, had taken Quito. The moment had arrived in which the two revolutions of the North and of the South "of the Continent joined hands on the Equator, in accordance with the plan of San Martin.
On the eve of setting out on his first expedition against Quito, Sucre had written to San Martin asking for his cooperation. After his defeat at Ambato, he wrote again, this time to the Peruvian Minister of War, showing the danger which threatened Guayaquil. From Columbia he received a reinforcement of 500 men, but this was quite insufficient to enable him to take the field. Again he wrote to the Protector of Peru, and San Martin now resolved to give him efficient help.
General Arenales, who was president of the department of Trujillo, had a division stationed on the Peruvian frontier of Quito. San Martin sent him orders to march with it to the assistance of Sucre. Arenales was ill, and declined the command, which was then bestowed upon Colonel Santa Cruz, and by a convention the Republic of Columbia undertook to pay the troops, and to supply the places of all who might fall in war. The auxiliary division consisted of about 1,200 men, among them being one squadron of the mounted grenadiers, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Lavalle.
Sucre left Guayaquil with such troops as he had, and joined the auxiliaries in the Province of Cuenca in February, 1822, forming an army of 2,000 men, and in March went in search of the enemy. While on the march Colonel Santa Cruz received a despatch from the Government of Peru directing him to withdraw from the army at once with his contingent, which strange order arose from the misunderstanding concerning Guayaquil. Santa Cruz ​showed the despatch to Sucre, who forbade him to act upon it, telling him that he was no longer under the orders of the Protector. Fortunately the officers of the contingent upheld the authority of Sucre, whose firmness on this occasion prevented a great disaster, and a few days later a despatch was received from San Martin himself cancelling the order.
The situation of the Royalists was now very difficult. The Army of Quito, though numbering 2,000 good soldiers, was isolated, and might defend the mountain passes, but was powerless to take the offensive. The affair at Bomboná had greatly depressed the spirits of the Pastusos. Murgeón had died of despair on seeing the untoward course of events, and Aymerich was again in command.
Aymerich detached Colonel Lopez with 1,500 men to protect the western passes. Lopez stationed himself at Rio Bamba, but was out-manceuvred by Sucre, who entered the valley at the foot of Chimborazo. In accordance with his instructions, Lopez avoided an action, and slowly retreated from one impregnable position to another, till on the 21st April, 1822, Sucre managed to gain his rear by an undefended pass. The Royalists retreated to another position behind the town of Rio Bamba. As they were marching, Lavalle took advantage of a faulty manoeuvre, and with ninety-six grenadiers charged the whole of their cavalry, 420 in number, and drove them in confusion upon the positions held by their infantry. Then retreating at full trot, he was joined by thirty Columbian dragoons. The Royalist horse having rallied, came down upon him at full gallop, upon which he wheeled round, charged them again, and completely routed them, with a loss of 52 killed and 40 wounded. One Argentine and one Columbian were killed and twenty were wounded, and the Royalist horse were of no further use in that campaign.
The infantry continued their retreat to the inaccessible position of Jalupano. Then Sucre, by a flank march of four days over the snow-covered heights of Cotopaxi, gained the valley of Chilló, 14 miles from Quito, but found ​the enemy again in an inaccessible position between him and the city. On the night of the 23rd May, during heavy rain, the Patriot army denied by a narrow road, covered with loose stones, over the slopes of the volcano of Pichincha, and at eight o'clock the next morning reached the heights overlooking the city of Quito, where the steep mountain side below them was covered by a forest of trees and brushwood.
Before the whole army had reached this position the Royalists had ascended the mountain side, and rushed out of the forest upon the 2nd battalion of Peru, which led the van. Colonel Olazabal, who was in command, stubbornly held his ground till his ammunition was exhausted. The position was held by one battalion after another, as it came up, so long as any cartridges were left, but the reserve ammunition was far in the rear, and the Royalists gained ground. A Columbian regiment charged with the bayonet and recovered the position. Then the Royalists advancing under shelter of the trees, endeavoured to turn the left flank of the Patriots, but were in their turn taken in flank by three companies of the Albion battalion and driven back in confusion. Colonel Cordova then brought up his regiment of Columbian infantry, and, with the aid of the Albion, drove the Royalists down the steep mountain side in utter rout. On such ground the cavalry on neither side could come into action, but the Royalist horse, drawn up as a reserve in the suburbs of the city, was attacked later on by the Patriot cavalry and dispersed.
Sucre then summoned the city to surrender. Next day, the 25th May, 1822, Aymerich capitulated. The Royalists lost 160 officers and 1,100 men taken prisoners, 400 killed and 190 wounded, 14 guns, and all their flags. The Patriots had 200 killed, of whom half belonged to the auxiliaries from Peru, and 140 wounded.
The victory of Pichincha was the seal of the continental alliance, and concluded the war in the North. Garcia, with his isolated force, capitulated to Bolivar, but the indomitable Pastusos refused to lay down their arms till ​Garcia appealed to Padilla, Bishop of Popayán, who had hitherto, both by his preaching and by his example, encouraged them in their fanatic loyalty to the King of Spain. Thanks to Bishop Padilla, a capitulation was agreed upon, by which these brave mountaineers were secured in possession of all their local laws and customs.
The Liberator entered Pasto in triumph, and thence, on the 8th June, addressed a bulletin to the Columbian people:—
"From the banks of the Orinoco to the Andes of Peru the liberating army, marching from one triumph to another, has covered with its protecting arms the whole of Columbia. Share with me the ocean of joy which bathes my heart, and raise in your own hearts altars to this army which has conquered for you glory, peace, and liberty."
The deification of the armies of Columbia inaugurated prætorianism in South America, which was soon to press heavily upon the independent States, and was to bring the career of Bolívar to an end. The soldiery began to look upon the people they had freed as upon men whom they had conquered. The victors of Pichincha declared that Quito was annexed to Columbia. The municipality protested, and were banished from the city. Nevertheless, Bolívar on his arrival was received with enthusiasm. On the 16th June he made a triumphal entry, and was presented with a laurel wreath of gold, the third he had received in commemoration of his victories.
The two Liberators of the North and of the South were now about to meet on the dividing line of their several campaigns. Their triumphant armies converged upon Peru. History presents no other example of so vast a military combination, carried out with steady perseverance for twelve long years, ending in the concentration of the forces of an entire continent upon one strategical point, which concentration gave the final victory.