When the Royalist vanguard occupied the city of Salta a lieutenant, named Ezenarro, was detached with thirty men to occupy a district thirty-two miles to the south in the valley of Lerma. The first Sunday after his arrival, one of the men of the place after morning mass, said:—
“We must rise against this canalla.”
“With what arms?” asked another.
“With those we take from them,” said yet another.
A proprietor, named Luis Burela, put himself at their head, surprised the guard, disarmed Ezenarro and his men, and sent them prisoners to Tucuman. Then, with the arms they had captured, they marched to within ten miles of Salta, where they were met by a company of Spanish troops, whom they charged at once, and completely routed, taking most of the men with their leader prisoners, and sending them also to Tucuman. Another proprietor, named Pedro Zabala, followed the example of Burela, armed his peons and some volunteers and took the field.
So began the resistance to the enemy, in which the whole people speedily joined, so that Salta became a bulwark to the United Provinces impregnable to Royalist arms, solely by the force of public opinion roused to action.
The Province of Salta, which at that time formed a part of the jurisdiction of Jujui, enters within the first spurs of the Andes which branch from the second of the two ranges which enclose Upper Peru, and has the same physical characteristics, plains, mountains, and an intermediate tropical zone. Its possession was thus of great importance to the invaders, as it was the gate to Argentine territory. The occupation of Jujui opened the road to the plains and valleys of Salta, but even the occupation of Salta itself did not secure their position. The agricultural lands, from which alone supplies could be drawn, lay in valleys to the south of the capital, and it was this part of the Province the guerillas undertook to defend. The nature of the country eminently adapted it to guerilla warfare. The inhabitants were a hard-working race of men, strong, active, and inured to hardships, individually brave, and with a natural instinct for the class of warfare they waged. They were horsemen, accustomed to go either up or down hill at full speed, whose ordinary equipment enabled them to gallop unharmed through thorny brushwood. They were good marksmen, either from the tree-tops or from horseback, or on foot from behind their horses if need were. San Martin made no mistake when he entrusted to them the task of keeping the Royalists at bay while he was engaged in the reorganization of the regular army at Tucuman. He had seen in Spain what might be accomplished by this class of irregular troops.
Pezuela, deceived by false despatches which San Martin caused to fall into his hands, believed that these raw levies were the vanguard of the Patriot army advancing on Salta, and in consequence lost much valuable time waiting for reinforcements.
In March the Royalist vanguard advanced from Salta into the valley of Lerma, in search of supplies, under the command of Colonel Saturnino Castro, a native of Salta, who had the repute of being the first cavalry officer of the Royalist army of Peru, and whose valour had decided the day at Vilcapugio. The guerillas, who became known to history as the Gauchos of Salta, greatly harassed the progress of the expedition, swarming in the woods along the line of march, cutting off stragglers, driving in small detachments, and firing upon the main body from any convenient shelter.
On the 24th, videttes on the Guachipas River at the end of the valley, descried fifty-six of the enemy, under Captain Fajardo, approaching them. Captain Saravia collected thirty men armed with short muskets, and a group of peasantry with clubs and pikes, charged upon them and completely routed them, killing eleven including the captain, and making twenty-seven prisoners, while he had only three men killed and one wounded.