Page:A history of Chile.djvu/174

 158 A HISTORY OF CHILE the civil war might have been carried, as both parties were in battle array, had not the intelligence arrived — a messenger with an official letter — that the viceroy of Peru had refused to ratify the recent compromise, and that an army of five hundred men under Colonel Mariano, the most able officer of Peru, was on the way to reinforce Gainza. ' The imminent danger reunited the patriots, now in arms against each other, O'Higgins waving his com- mand and serving under his rival ; Carrera used every effort to recruit his army, and soon yielding to the solicitations of the anxious citizens, gave over the command of a portion of the patriot troops in the field to O'Higgins, who forthwith marched toward the south to meet the Spaniards advancing from Talca. He first encountered the enemy at the river Cachapoal, but was driven back by superior nnmbers. He then made a stand at Rancagua, where he was besieged for two days, Carrera being outside the town with the main army. On October ist and 2nd, 1814, the place was assailed, a desperate battle fought, and O'Higgins defeated, as Carrera afforded his rival no assistance. The enemy cut the aqueducts, which flooded the streets in which the patriots had barricaded themselves, and then set fire to the houses. The patriot army, in this division, numbered two thousand men and all perished but three hundred and nine. A part of the army formed itself into a phalanx and cut its way through the enemy's lines, then retreated in mad haste over the Andes toward Mendoza. Carrera was compelled to fall back to Santiago with 1,500 of his men, and was loudly de- nounced for the defeat. Great was the consternation throughout Chile ; Car- rera with six hundred of his troops fled across the mountains to Mendoza, followed by more than two