CHAPTER XVIII.
MAIPO.
1818.
AT daybreak on the 20th March the Royalist army, although triumphant, was in utter confusion. Only one battalion, that of Arequipa, under Rodil, had not dispersed. Osorio, leaving his convent, rode over the field of battle, endeavouring to estimate the value of the victory he had done nothing to win. The orderly retreat of Las Heras filled him with apprehension, and his own cavalry was worn out. He crossed the Lircay and advanced to Pangue, from whence he despatched Ordoñez with a flying column in pursuit, and returned with the rest of his force to Talca to reorganize. Ordoñez reached Quecheraguas the next day, when Las Heras had already crossed the Lontué. On the 24th he was joined by Osorio with the rest of the army.
The country was a desert; the roads were inundated by the waters from the irrigating ditches which the Patriots had cut as they retreated; the Royalist general could learn nothing of the position or condition of the Patriot army. Marching blindly on, he reached San Fernando on the 28th, and sent forward a detachment of 200 horse, which, being attacked and dispersed by sixty grenadiers under Captain Cajaravilla on the 30th, were the first to give him certain information that there still remained an enemy in front of him.
On the 31st the Royal army, 5,500 strong, crossed the Cachapoal, and advanced so cautiously that only on the afternoon of the 2nd April did it encamp on the left bank of the Maipó. Leaving the main road, Osorio crossed by a ford lower down, and encamped at Calera on the 3rd, moving on in the afternoon to the farmhouse of Espejo, where he established his headquarters, with the Patriot army close at hand. On the 4th he held a council of war, and proposed to retire on Valparaiso. Ordoñez, Rivera, and the principal officers opposed this idea, so it was resolved to fight the next day.
The scene of the decisive battle of the 5th April, 1818, is a plain bounded on the east by the river Mapocho, which divides the city of Santiago, on the north by a range of hills which separates it from the valley of Aconcagua, and on the south by the river Maipó,[11] which gives it its name. The west of this plain consists of a series of downs, with some low hills, covered with natural grasses and occasional clumps of thorny trees. From Santiago there runs in this direction a stretch of high land called the “Loma Blanca,” from the chalky nature of the soil. On the crest of this Loma the Patriot army was encamped. In front of the western extremity of this Loma rose another of triangular form, beyond the south-western angle of which stood the farmhouse of Espejo, communicating with the higher ground by a sloping road of about twenty-five yards in width, shut in by vineyards and by the mud walls of enclosures, and crossed at the foot by a ditch. This Loma was occupied by the Royalist army. Between the two Lomas lay a stretch of low ground, varying in width from 300 to 1,250 yards, which was shut in on the west by a hillock which formed a sort of advanced work on the left of the Royalist position.
The position held by the Patriot army commanded the three roads from the capital to the passes of the Maipó, and the road to Valparaiso. For its further security San Martin had entrenched the city, and garrisoned it with 1,000 militia and one battalion of infantry, under command of O’Higgins, whose wound precluded him from service in the field. The army was in three divisions: the first, under Las Heras, on the right; the second, under Alvarado, on the left; and a reserve in a second line, under Quintana. Balcarce was in general command of the infantry, San Martin keeping the cavalry and the reserve under his own orders. San Martin issued the most precise orders for the regulation of the troops in action, especially enjoining upon every corps, whether cavalry or infantry, that they should never await a charge from the enemy, but that, when fifty paces distant, they should rush forward with sabre or bayonet.
During the whole day of the 4th April skirmishers of the Patriot army were constantly engaged with the enemy advancing from the fords of the Maipó. Early on the morning of the 5th San Martin, attended by O’Brien and D’Albe, with a small escort, rode to the edge of the Loma to watch for himself the movements of the foe. He feared that they would go far to the west and secure the road to Valparaiso for retreat in case of a reverse. As he saw them occupy the high ground in front of him with their left only extending to the road, he exclaimed:—
“What brutes these Spaniards are! Osorio is a greater fool than I thought him. I take the sun for witness that the day is ours.”
At that moment the sun shone forth over the snowy crests of the Andes from a cloudless sky upon him.
At half-past ten the Patriot army advanced by the crest of the Loma from its camping-ground. On the march, Marshal Brayer presented himself to San Martin, asking permission to retire to the Baths of Colina.