Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/415

Rh He halted at La Puerta, for him a most ominous position, and was there attacked on the morning of the 16th March by the Royalist vanguard under Morales. He succeeded in repulsing this attack, but Morillo, in person, led up the main body, and though himself wounded, quickly drove the Patriots from the field, with the loss of 400 killed and 600 wounded.

Bolívar lost in this battle even his private papers, and seemed to have lost his head also. He exposed himself in the most reckless manner wherever the fight was hottest, seeming to court death as some expiation of the errors he had committed. Fortunately for him, on the 6th March Paez had captured San Fernando, with twenty guns, eighteen armed vessels, and seventy-three flecheras, and now came to his assistance; as did also Cedeño with his guerillas.

La Torre, who had taken command of the Royalists, found another army in front of him when he advanced to Calabozo. He retreated to the heights of Ortiz on the river Poga, which command the entrance to the valleys. Here he was attacked by Bolívar and Paez with 800 infantry and 2,000 horse. The strength of his position enabled him to repulse several assaults, after which he prudently retreated to Cura, and later on to San Carlos.

Bolívar then detached Paez against San Carlos, and marched with the bulk of his force further to the West, always aiming at Caracas. Paez was met at Cojedes by La Torre with a very superior force. Carried away by his impetuosity, he charged at the head of one squadron, and bore down all before him, but found on his return to the field that his army had disappeared. Overwhelmed by numbers the infantry had been cut to pieces, the cavalry had fled. Paez returned to San Fernando with less than half the force with which he had commenced the campaign.

Still worse fortune befell Bolívar. He abandoned the plains and advanced into a country swarming with detached parties of Royalists, lie, with his staff, were attacked at night as they slept in hammocks in a wood. He threw off his green spencer and brass helmet and