The unitarian Bartolomé Mitre wrote a series of biographies, and established Bernardino Rivadavia as a national hero of Argentina. However, as Rivadavia was a statesman without a military career, Mitre sought to create a military national hero, to complement Rivadavia, and wrote a biography of Manuel Belgrano. This attempt did not prove completely effective, as Belgrano had grave defeats in his military career. Thus, Mitre wrote a biography of San Martín, ""Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación sudamericana"" (). By that time, several accounts of San Martín were being written at many countries: Valentín Ledesma from Lima wrote in 1853 about San Martín's campaign in Peru, and Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna from Chile wrote in 1856 about the Chilean War of Independence.