Bolivar: American Liberator (89 page)

“In twenty-four days”:
San Martín to Pueyrredón,
Anales de la Universidad de Chile
, IX (Santiago, 1852), 140; Mitre,
Historia
, II, 19.

Not particularly well-read:
Mary Graham,
De Don José de San Martín.

“There is a timidity of intellect”:
Ibid.

“It is impossible to know”:
Georg Gottfried Gervinus, quoted in R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 76.

refused salaries, etc.:
Ibid., 120–21.

“your approval . . . is reward enough”:
Ibid., 119.

crippling bouts of rheumatism:
Ibid., 66.

deeply addicted to the drug:
The most persuasive evidence in this regard is a letter from President Pueyrredón: “I’ve tried to persuade San Martín to quit using opium; but unsuccessfully, for he tells me that he will surely die without it.” Pueyreddón to T. Guido, Buenos Aires, June 16, 1818, Guido y Spano,
Vindicación histórica
(Buenos Aires: Librería de Mayo, 1882), 117; also R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 67, 80, 127–28; Galasso, 125.

“An angry hemorrhage”:
San Martín to Godoy Cruz, Jan. 19, 1816, DAGSM, V, 529–30.

stole the potent little tubes:
Guido, who admits to doing this, is quoted in R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 127.

all of three sentences:
“We have just obtained a complete victory. Our cavalry pursues them to finish them. The country is free.” San Martín to General Headquarters, April 5, 1818, in R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 144.

accused him of being drunk:
Ibid.

“I found the hero of Maipú”:
Samuel Haigh, quoted in R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 159.

Several thousand skilled soldiers:
Ibid., 157.

accused as a traitor, etc.:
Ibid., 160.

“I have pledged my honor”:
Ibid., 158.

“I have no homeland”:
Ibid.

San Martín and four thousand troops:
He had counted on 6,000 but only had 4,000. Wu, 13–15.

He virtually honeycombed Peru:
Madariaga, 406–7.

suggesting that the eminence might appoint his own regency:
Galasso, 375. Also Barros Arana,
Compendio elemental
, 479. Capt. W. Bowles, the British naval station head at the mouth of the Río Plata, reported in early 1817 that San Martín had confided long before “his desire to establish monarchies under British protection in Spanish America” and that the information was sent at once to the British Foreign Office: Rippy,
Rivalry of the United States and Great Britain
, 12.

A major earthquake:
Occurred on July 10, 1821, in Camaná, south of Lima, and was measured at 8.2 magnitude. Known casualties: 162. U.S. Geological Survey, Dept. of the Interior, earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/historical_country.php.

ghosts of the angry Inca:
Attributed to the historian Mariano Torrente, in R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 181.

At first, he took lodging at a monastery:
Ibid., 182.

named himself Protector, etc.:
San Martín proclaimed independence on July 28, 1821. On August 3, he issued a proclamation announcing that the supreme powers of the military and government were vested in himself, under the title of Protector. San Martín,
Decreto
, Lima, Aug. 3, 1821,
Collección de documentos literarios del Peru
, IV (Lima: Imprenta del Estado, 1877), 318; also Robertson,
History of the Latin-American Nations
(New York: Appleton, 1922), 184.

waved his flag:
R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 183.

wasted no time in writing to San Martín:
SB states in his letter that he is sending Diego Ibarra to facilitate communication. Col. Ibarra was SB’s first aide-de-camp. He was also related to SB through SB’s dead wife and the extended family of del Toros. It was rumored in Lima that Ibarra was a spy.

“I hope to heaven”:
SB to San Martín, Trujillo, Aug. 23, 1821, SBO, III, 586.

stalled in fractious argument:
Barros Arana, 467.

He was tired of managing:
SB to Soublette, Cúcuta, Oct. 5, 1821, SBO, III, 599.

“I’m not going to lose”:
SB to Santander, Tocuyo, Aug. 16, 1821,
Cartas: Santander–Bolívar
, III, 132.

On November 27, he bought, etc.:
The deed of sale, finalized in the presence of the ministers of the treasury, is transcribed in Duarte French,
Las Ibañez
, 76–77. See also Polanco Alcántara, 641–42.

the Liberator had claimed to love:
SB to Santander, Pamplona, Nov. 8, 1819, SBO, I, 401–2.

as a mistress for fifteen more years:
Polanco Alcántara, 641–42; Duarte French, 76–77.

moved into that comfortable house:
Polanco Alcántara, 641.

“Fussy, beautiful Bernardina”:
SB to “The Fussy and more than fussy, beautiful Bernardina,” Cali, Jan. 5, 1822, SBO, II, 619. In a footnote, Lecuna comments that the letter, which belonged to E. Naranjo Martínez, the Colombian consul in Boston, was written in Bolívar’s hand, and purchased from the collector Francis Russell Hart (1868–1938) in Boston.

Spanish frigates controlled:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 85–86.

had once saved the Argentine’s life:
Parte de la batalla de Arjonilla, June 23, 1808; original document available at
http://abc.gov.ar/
.

landed on the coast of Ecuador:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 85–86.

an army of four thousand:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 83.

the army was a fraction of itself:
A third had been lost: Ibid., 88–89.

had met with devastating defeat:
For an account of Sucre’s frustrations, ibid., 119–34, 148–51.

Sucre had called on San Martín:
Ibid., 147–48. Sucre had called for San Martín to lend him the Numancia Battalion, a force of native Colombians who had fought for Spain, then defected to the rebels. San Martín refused to send the Colombians, but sent another force led by Colonel Andrés de Santa Cruz.

Obando, emerged under a flag of truce, etc.:
J. M. Vergara y Vergara,
Almanaque de Bogotá
(Bogotá: Gaitan, 1866), 158.

“I have been awake all night”:
SB to Santander, Popayán, Jan. 29, 1822, SBO, II, 623–27.

What he proposed was forgery, etc.:
Ibid.

“The object of all this fuss”:
Ibid.

His instructions to Santander, etc.:
Ibid.

Quito’s interim president Aymerich:
SB to Aymerich, Popayán, Feb. 18, 1822, SBO, II, 635–36.

recently arrived Captain-General:
SB to Mourgeón, Popayán, Jan. 31, 1822, ibid., 627–28.

overtures to Popayán’s bishop:
SB to Salvador Jiménez, Obispo, Jan. 31, 1822, ibid., 628–29.

ordered his officers not to have lunch:
SB had ordered his second in command, Gen. Torres, to take the heights of Cariaco. Torres was not to direct mess officers to dispense the midday meal until they did. Mosquera, 441; also Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 97–98.

Wave after wave of patriot lines, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 97–101; also López,
Recuerdos históricos
, 63–68; Obando,
Apuntamientos
, I, 38–40.

clambering up a ladder:
Bartolomé Salom,
Boletín del Ejercito Libertador
, April 8, 1822, O’L, XIX, 236–40; also Guzmán Blanco,
Bolívar y San Martín
(Caracas: La Opinion Nacional, 1885), 40. Andrés Bello would later describe it in his “Fragmentos de un poema titulado ‘América,’ ”
Obras Completas
, III (Santiago: Ramírez, 1883), 59.

“Our camp . . . was a mill”:
Obando, 38–40.

including Bolívar:
SB to Col. J. Lara, Cariaco, April 15, 1822, O’L, XIX, 251–52.

split the royalist camp:
Salom,
Boletín del Ejercito Libertador
(Buenos Aires: Instituto Samatiniano, 1971), O’L, XIX.

Every patriot officer:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 98.

carried away in a litter:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 169.

Epigraph:
“I am consumed by the demon of war”:
SB to Sucre, Huaraz, June 9, 1824, O’L, XXIX, 503.

“Either I lose my way”:
SB to Santander, Tocuyo, Aug. 16, 1821, SBO, II, 582.

he seemed far older:
From
Notes on Colombia, Taken in the Years 1822–3, Reviewed in The United States Literary Gazette
(New York, 1827), I, 418–32.

grizzled by war, etc.:
Physical descriptions of him at this point in his life abound, but perhaps the most persuasive are in Boulton,
El rostro de Bolívar
; these show the changes in progressive portraits of SB.

harder for him to tolerate the physical hardship:
This was evident in his weakness at the Battle of Bomboná, but he mentions his exhaustion in SB to Marqués del Toro and Fernando del Toro, Quito, June 21, 1822, SBO, II, 648–49; and SB to Santander, Guayaquil, Aug. 29, 1822, ibid, 680–82.

“If God had given us the right”:
SB to his loyal friend Gen. Mosquera, quoted in Antonio José de Sucre,
Documentos selectos
(Caracas: Bib. Ayacucho, 1993), vii.

last missive Sucre had received:
SB to Sucre, Cuartel general de la Plata, Dec. 22, 1821, SBO, I, 115–16.

The Protector of Peru had announced:
Vicente Lecuna, “Bolívar and San Martín at Guayaquil,”
HAHR
, 31, no. 3, 372–73.

worked himself into a state:
Madariaga, 428.

a copy of a letter Bolívar had sent:
SB to J. J. de Olmedo, Cali, Jan. 2, 1822, SBO, II, 616–17.

A bomb could not have produced:
The exact words of Lecuna in “Bolívar and San Martín at Guayaquil,” 372–73.

authority to go to war:
Espejo,
Recuerdos históricos
, 110.

persuaded Santa Cruz to ignore:
Masur, “The Conference of Guayaquil,” 195.

He decided to send one of his generals:
José de la Mar, a Peruvian Creole who had started out as a royalist, but defected to the patriots after San Martín entered Lima. La Mar turned out to be the wrong person to send to the thoroughly patriot enclave of Guayaquil. Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 189. Also SB to La Mar, Guaranda, July 3, 1822, SBO, II, 654–55.

skirted the city, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 173–77; and O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 165–69.

Mourgeón . . . had died suddenly:
P. F. Cevallos,
Resúmen de la historia del Ecuador
, III (Lima: Imprenta del Estado, 1870), 381.

It had rained all night:
Sobrevilla,
Caudillo of the Andes
, 62.

clambered onto their rooftops:
Prago, 206.

with full military honors:
Sobrevilla, 62.

“Sucre had more troops”:
SB to Santander, Pasto, June 9, 1822, SBO, II, 642–44.

greater than Napoleon’s empire:
The landmass of Bolívar’s liberated nations at this point in mid-June of 1822 amounted to roughly 935,000 square miles. Napoleon’s empire, at its peak, measured 810,815 square miles.

“At one o’clock I presented”:
John Quincy Adams,
Memoirs
, VI, 23.

arms, ships, reinforcements:
Torres had been responsible for the shipload of arms that Juan Vicente Bolívar, Simon’s brother, was trying to bring back to Venezuela in 1811, when his ship went down in the Caribbean. Whitaker, 68.

dragged himself home to Philadelphia:
Ibid., 69.

day of their diplomat’s funeral, etc.:
Ibid. Torres was the grand-nephew of the famous archbishop-viceroy of New Granada, Antonio Caballero y Góngora. He had come from Spain with the viceroy and was radicalized after spending several years in Cartagena. He lived in Philadelphia from 1796 until his death in 1822, and came to be highly esteemed by Henry Clay and many other distinguished Americans of his time. Arciniegas,
Bolívar y la revolución
, 124–26.

not be fully aware of:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 240;
Gaceta de Lima
, Jan. 18, 1823, I, JCBL.

legend has it:
The legend of Manuela Sáenz on a Quito balcony comes from “Diarios de Quito,” a diary that was purported to be hers. But it has come into question, as have many unverified letters attributed to her. Indeed there is a veritable minefield of uncorroborated accounts about Sáenz. These “Diarios” are published in C. Alvarez Saá’s
Manuela: Sus diarios perdidos y otros papeles
(Ecuador: Imprenta Mariscal, 1995).

at a ball given for him, etc.:
Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 30.