Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/205

Rh Cachapoal, and advanced so cautiously that only on the afternoon of the 2nd April did it encamp on the left bank of the Maipó. Leaving the main road, Osorio crossed by a ford lower down, and encamped at Calera on the 3rd, moving on in the afternoon to the farmhouse of Espejo, where he established his headquarters, with the Patriot army close at hand. On the 4th he held a council of war, and proposed to retire on Valparaiso. Ordoñez, Rivera, and the principal officers opposed this idea, so it was resolved to fight the next day.

The scene of the decisive battle of the 5th April, 1818, is a plain bounded on the east by the river Mapocho, which divides the city of Santiago, on the north by a range of hills which separates it from the valley of Aconcagua, and on the south by the river Maipó, which gives it its name. The west of this plain consists of a series of downs, with some low hills, covered with natural grasses and occasional clumps of thorny trees. From Santiago there runs in this direction a stretch of high land called the "Loma Blanca," from the chalky nature of the soil. On the crest of this Loma the Patriot army was encamped. In front of the western extremity of this Loma rose another of triangular form, beyond the south-western angle of which stood the farmhouse of Espejo, communicating with the higher ground by a sloping road of about twenty-five yards in width, shut in by vineyards and by the mud walls of enclosures, and crossed at the foot by a ditch. This Loma was occupied by the Royalist army. Between the two Lorn as lay a stretch of low ground, varying in width from 300 to 1,250 yards, which was shut in on the west by a hillock which formed a sort of advanced work on the left of the Royalist position.

The position held by the Patriot army commanded the three roads from the capital to the passes of the Maipó, and the road to Valparaiso. For its further security San