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378 the embassy to the United States, because he would not receive from the hands of the President the bribe of $14,000 with which he tempted him to withdraw his resignation.

The battle of Pavon terminated these unhappy consequences of an evil which a conciliatory policy had failed to subdue. Urquiza was routed, the national government was dissolved, and as it was expedient for an army to be sent into the interior, to secure and increase the results of the victory, Colonel Sarmiento was made commander-in-chief and official representative of the political views of his party. A pamphlet written by him describes this campaign, which began with the rout of a force entrenched behind the Carcaraña.

In pursuance of the operations of the war, and having captured two pieces of artillery from San Juan at San Luis, he was the first to reach the city of Mendoza, on January 1, 1862, attended by the victorious troops of Buenos Ayres. Proceeding at once to San Juan, he met with the reception to be looked for from the people of his birthplace upon their release from so long a series of disasters endured in behalf of a cause whose triumph had demanded a sacrifice of which they were the victims, as well as the generous sympathy thus awakened in Buenos Ayres; for it is positively known that it was the odium of the San Juan massacres that solved the difficulties previously insuperable either by political combinations, treaties, or battles. On January 11, he celebrated, as governor of the province, an office to which the general voice had called him, the obsequies of the illustrious men who had fallen in those massacres, and thenceforward