At this time he received most efficient assistance from his friend Don Tomas Guido, who had first met him in London, and who had afterwards in Tucuman learned from him something of his ideas in regard to the conduct of the war. Guido drew up a memorial and presented it to the Supreme Director, in which he warmly supported the idea of attacking Peru by way of Chile; and his aid became still more efficacious when the meeting of the Congress of Tucuman, a few weeks later on, placed the administration of affairs in new hands.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ARMY OF THE ANDES.
1816—1817.
THE organization of the Army of the Andes is one of the most extraordinary feats recorded in military history. It was a war machine, composed of men filled with the spirit of the Argentine Revolution and with a passion for things American, without which spirit and without which passion it could never have achieved the task before it. Never was the military automaton more thoroughly endued with human energy.
The auxiliary corps of Las Heras formed the nucleus of this army, to which was soon added two companies of the 8th Regiment from Buenos Ayres, with four field guns. In 1815 Colonel Zapiola joined it with two squadrons of the Grenadiers. These corps were greatly strengthened by volunteers, who joined them in Cuyo.
In 1816 the new Government appointed by the Congress of Tucuman, constituted it formally as The Army of the Andes, under the command of San Martin as Captain-General, with General Soler as chief of the Staff, and further strengthened it with the 7th Regiment of Infantry from Buenos Ayres, and additions to the 8th; Colonel Conde being placed in command of the 8th, and Colonel Cramer, a Frenchman, who had served under Napoleon, in command of the 7th. The 11th, under Las Heras, was divided into two battalions, of which the second became the 1st Light Infantry under Lieutenant-Colonel Alvarado. A fifth squadron under Necochea was added to the Grenadiers. Thus early in September the army numbered 2,300 men with the flags, a force still insufficient for the work, but recruiting went on briskly.
The question of giving freedom to all slaves who would enlist being under discussion at Tucuman, San Martin spread the report in Cuyo that the idea was to be carried out, and advised the Cabildos to prevail upon the slaveowners to set their slaves free before the project became law. There was much unwillingness to accede to this proposition, but at length it was resolved to set two-thirds of the slaves free, the manumission not to be effective until the army crossed the Andes. This gave a further reinforcement of 710 men to the infantry. Before the end of the year the army numbered 4,000 men, almost all of whom were Argentines. The Chilian emigrants were organized into a reserve as the nucleus for the future army of Chile. This reserve was placed under command of O’Higgins, who received a commission as a General of the United Provinces, but within it were many partizans of Carrera, upon whom San Martin looked with suspicion.
This army was sustained by a combination of patriotic subscriptions, gratuitous services, and of regular and arbitrary taxes. Some carried arms, others gave money or labour, all the inhabitants of Cuyo contributed in some way or another to the great work. For the furnishing of arms, powder and equipments, special measures were adopted. San Martin found the man he wanted for this work in a mendicant friar named Luis Beltran. This Beltran was a native of Mendoza, and being in Chile at the time of the revolution had joined the Patriots and served as an artilleryman at the siege of Chillán. After Rancagua he returned on foot to his own country, with a bag of tools of his own making on his shoulders. Self-taught, he was at once a mathematician and a chemist, an artilleryman and a maker of watches or of fireworks, a carpenter, an architect, a blacksmith, a draughtsman, a cobbler, and a physician. In addition he was of a robust constitution and of soldierly bearing. He became one of the chaplains of the new army. San Martin soon discovered his extraordinary talents, and entrusted him with the establishment of an arsenal. Soon he had three hundred workmen under his orders, all of whom were taught by himself. He cast cannon, shot, and shell, melting down the church bells when other metal was not to be had; he made limbers for the guns, saddles for the cavalry, knapsacks and shoes for the infantry, and all other kinds of necessary equipment; forged horseshoes and bayonets, repaired damaged muskets, and in his leisure moments drew on the walls of his grimy workshop designs for carriages specially adapted for the conveyance of war material over the steep passes of the Andes. In 1816, he took off his friar’s frock, donned the uniform of a lieutenant of artillery, with a monthly salary of 25 dollars, and became the Archimedes of the Army of the Andes.
In addition to this arsenal, San Martin established a laboratory of saltpetre and a powder factory, in charge of his aide-de-camp Major Condarco, using water power to work the machines. This factory produced excellent gunpowder, sufficient for the supply of the army, at very small cost. He also set up a manufactory of army cloth, which cloth was dyed blue, and uniforms for the troops were made of it by the women of Mendoza, free of charge. A military tribunal was created, and the medical staff was organized under Dr. Paroissien, a naturalised Englishman. The commissariat and treasury were also placed under the strictest regulations. Everything was prepared for an offensive war, and for distant operations.
In May, 1816, the scheme was almost upset by the persistence of the Central Government in prosecuting the war in Upper Peru. San Martin had taken great interest in the projected Congress of Tucuman since the idea was first mooted, looking upon it as the last hope of the revolution. Four deputies were sent from Cuyo, who were all friends of his, and who took deep interest in his plan. One of them, Don Juan Martin Pueyrredon, was elected President.
The majority of this Congress were in favour of the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. San Martin and Belgrano, who commanded the armies of Cuyo and the North, were the pillars of the State edifice, and, though San Martin was in theory a Republican, they both shared in this opinion, but both were equally convinced that the first step should be a Declaration of Independence, in order to put an end to the present anomalous position, in which they, still nominally subject to the King of Spain, made war upon Spain under a flag of their own. Thus the Declaration of Independence on the 9th July was welcomed by San Martin as a master stroke of policy.