Bernardo O’Higgins, the Chilean Patriot, led one of the divisions; for Chile had now joined forces with Argentina against Spain.
Higher and higher the Army climbed, scouts clearing the way before it, until it began to enter the passes of the Cordilleras. Then San Martin, who was still tarrying at Mendoza, wrote to a friend:—
“This afternoon I leave to join the Army. God grant me success in this great enterprise!”
Then saying good-bye to the folk of Mendoza, by whom he was so much beloved, he hastened to join one of the divisions.
Day after day, the troops followed the steep ascents and descents, walking close to roaring torrents, crossing craggy peaks and narrow chasms, skirting edges of precipices, wading through snow, and hauling heavy guns and supplies up steep inclines.
Great mountain-ridges, with cañons between, ran north and south, beside numerous lesser ridges; all these had to be crossed to reach Chile. The intense cold on the summits, killed many of the soldiers. While the rarefied air caused numbers to drop down and die from heart failure and exhaustion. Of the nine thousand two hundred and eighty-one mules and the sixteen hundred horses Friar Beltran had in charge, over half perished.
The soldiers, surrounded by the mountain peaks that seemed to touch the sky with their snow-bound jagged tops, were depressed by the awful loneliness. Now and then, a condor wheeled above them. Strange noises, made by gusts of wind in the cañons, sounded like the wails of lost souls. Every step the soldiers took, convinced them that should they be attacked, it would be impossible to retreat. Such were some of the terrible hardships uncomplainingly suffered by the Army of the Andes.
But the soldiers laughed at despair; a spirit of union and comradeship upheld them. Each corps tried to outdo the others in cheerful endurance.
At last, after more than three weeks, the Army began to defile from the passes into Chile. Then San Martin and O’Higgins, in the great battle of Chacabuco and later at Maipu, won the victory and drove the Spanish Army from Chile.
General Miller and Bartolome Mitre (Retold)