On the 8th of March, Bolívar began his advance to the South, being forced to leave a thousand men in the hospitals on the way. Scarcely two thousand men formed the army when it approached the formidable Nudo de Pasto. Sucre, who had been stationed in Guayaquil, moved so as to distract the attention of the Spaniards, thus helping Bolívar, and this was the only favorable circumstance.
Two thousand men were awaiting Bolívar in the city of Pasto, men who knew the country and who had the support of the inhabitants in their war against the independents. The commander of Pasto was a Spanish colonel named D. Basilio García.
The two armies met in a place called Bomboná, where all the advantages were on the side of the royalists. Bolívar found himself about to attack an army made almost invulnerable by nature; forests, roads, ravines—all protected it. In such a position, Bolívar merely said these words: "We must conquer and we will conquer!"
On the 7th of April the battle of Bomboná occurred. It lasted the entire afternoon and part of the night. The independent army rose to the occasion, and accomplished what it had never before realized. The light of the moon witnessed the retreat of the royalist army, defeated and destroyed, seeking shelter in the city of Pasto; and the name of Bomboná was written in history beside those of Boyacá and Carabobo as among the most momentous, the most significant battles fought for the cause of independence.[1]
[Footnote 1: Before the battle, General Pedro León Torres misunderstood an order from Bolívar. The latter instructed him to surrender his command to a colonel. Torres took a rifle and answered:
"Libertador, if I am not good enough to serve my country as a general,
I shall serve her as a grenadier."
Bolívar gave him back his command; Torres ordered the advance of his men and threw himself against the enemy, falling fatally wounded.]
The city of Pasto was unanimous against the Liberator, who now asked García to surrender. García at first refused, but finally accepted capitulation. He was a brave man and a creditable representative of Spanish heroism.
Bolívar entered Pasto. He was in such grave danger from the hostility of the inhabitants that he had to be escorted by Spanish soldiers, who, in this way, displayed their loyalty to their word and their high sense of honor.
This occurred on the 8th of June, 1822. The battle of Bomboná had taken place two months before, and in the interval another great event occurred in favor of the independent army. General Sucre, who had come to help Bolívar in the movement, had taken several cities as he advanced towards Quito. On the 24th of May he fought a decisive battle on the volcanic mountain of Pichincha, by which the independence of Quito was secured. The battle of Pichincha made Sucre the greatest general in the Repúblican army, after Bolívar. He captured 1,200 prisoners, several pieces of field artillery, guns and implements of war, and even made prisoner the Spanish commander, Aymerich. On the 25th of May, Sucre entered the city of Quito, two hundred and eighty years after the Spaniards arrived in that city for the first time.