Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/109



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 79

compelled to abandon Loma Valentina, and accom- panied by a handful of horsemen, dashes through the enemy and reaches Cerro Leon.

December 30, 1868. — The celebrated Angostura batteries, commanded by Lieut. -Col. George Thompson, C.E., and Colonel Carrillo, surrender.

January 2, 1869. — The Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Caxias, enters in triumph Asuncion, finds it evacuated, and declares the war to be " ended.^^

At this point finishes the second act of the war, and begins the third, which is not yet concluded. Marshal- President Lopez, safely sheltered by the mountains, de- termines upon a guerilla warfare, and collects for that purpose the last of the doomed Paraguayan race.