The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0074/00743.txt

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$Title{History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Chapter VI: Part III}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Prescott, William H.}
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$Date{1864}
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Title:       History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Book:        Book IV: Civil Wars Of The Conquerors
Author:      Prescott, William H.
Date:        1864

Chapter VI: Part III

     The shades of night had now, for some time, been coming thicker and
thicker over the field.  But still the deadly struggle went on in the
darkness, as the red and white badges intimated the respective parties,
and their war-cries rose above the din, - "Vaca de Castro y el Rey," -
"Almagro y el Rey," - while both invoked the aid of their military apostle
St. James.  Holguin, who commanded the royalists on the left, pierced
through by two musket-balls, had been slain early in the action.  He had
made himself conspicuous by a rich sobrevest of white velvet over his
armour.  Still a gallant band of cavaliers maintained the fight so
valiantly on that quarter, that the Almagrians found it difficult to keep
their ground. ^26

[Footnote 26: The battle was so equally contested, says Beltran, one of
Vaca de Castro's captains, that it was long doubtful on which side victory
was to incline.  "I la batalla estuvo mui gran rato en peso sin conoscerse
vitoria de la una parte a la otra." Carta de Ventura Beltran, Ms.]

     It fared differently on the right, where Alonso de Alvarado
commanded.  He was there encountered by Almagro in person, who fought
worthy of his name.  By repeated charges on his opponent, he endeavoured
to bear down his squadrons, so much worse mounted and worse armed than his
own.  Alvarado resisted with undiminished courage; but his numbers had
been thinned, as we have seen, before the battle, to supply the governor's
reserve, and, fairly overpowered by the superior strength of his
adversary, who had already won two of the royal banners, he was slowly
giving ground.  "Take, but kill not!" shouted the generous young chief,
who felt himself sure of victory. ^27

[Footnote 27: "Gritaba, Victoria; i decia, Prender i no matar." Herrera,
Hist. General, dec. 7, lib. 3, cap. 11.]

     But at this crisis, Vaca de Castro, who, with his reserve, had
occupied a rising ground that commanded the field of action, was fully
aware that the time had now come for him to take part in the struggle.  He
had long strained his eyes through the gloom to watch the movements of the
combatants, and received constant tidings how the fight was going.  He no
longer hesitated, but, calling on his men to follow, led off boldly into
the thickest of the melee to the support of his stouthearted officer.  The
arrival of a new corps on the field, all fresh for action, gave another
turn to the tide. ^28 Alvarado's men took heart and rallied.  Almagro's,
though driven back by the fury of the assault, quickly returned against
their assailants.  Thirteen of Vaca de Castro's cavaliers fell dead from
their saddles.  But it was the last effort of the Almagrians.  Their
strength, though not their spirit, failed them.  They gave way in all
directions, and, mingling together in the darkness, horse, foot, and
artillery, they trampled one another down, as they made the best of their
way from the press of their pursuers.  Almagro used every effort to stay
them.  He performed miracles of valor, says one who witnessed them; but he
was borne along by the tide, and, though he seemed to court death, by the
freedom with which he exposed his person to danger yet he escaped without
a wound.

[Footnote 28: The letter of the municipality of Arequipa gives the
governor credit for deciding the fate of the day by this movement, and the
writers express their "admiration of the gallantry and courage he
displayed, so little to have been expected from his age and profession."
See the original in Appendix, No. 13.]

     Others there were of his company, and among them a young cavalier
named Geronimo de Alvarado, who obstinately refused to quit the field; and
shouting out, - "We slew Pizarro!  we killed the tyrant!" they threw
themselves on the lances of their conquerors, preferring death on the
battle-field to the ignominious doom of the gibbet. ^29

[Footnote 29: "Se arrojaron en los Enemigos, como desesperados, hiriendo a
todas partes, diciendo cada vno por su nombre: Yo soi Fulano, que mate al
Marques; i asi anduvieron hasta, que los hicieron pedacos.' Zarate, Conq.
del Peru, lib. 4, cap. 19.]

     It was nine o'clock when the battle ceased, though the firing was
heard at intervals over the field at a much later hour, as some straggling
party of fugitives were overtaken by their pursuers.  Yet many succeeded
in escaping in the obscurity of night, while some, it is said, contrived
to elude pursuit in a more singular way; tearing off the badges from the
corpses of their enemies, they assumed them for themselves, and, mingling
in the ranks as followers of Vaca de Castro, joined in the pursuit.

     That commander, at length, fearing some untoward accident, and that
the fugitives, should they rally again under cover of the darkness, might
inflict some loss on their pursuers, caused his trumpets to sound, and
recalled his scattered forces under their banners.  All night they
remained under arms on the field, which, so lately the scene of noisy
strife, was now hushed in silence, broken only by the groans of the
wounded and the dying.  The natives, who had hung, during the fight, like
a dark cloud, round the skirts of the mountains, contemplating with gloomy
satisfaction the destruction of their enemies, now availed themselves of
the obscurity to descend, like a pack of famished wolves, upon the plains,
where they stripped the bodies of the slain, and even of the living, but
disabled wretches, who had in vain dragged themselves into the bushes for
concealment.  The following morning, Vaca de Castro gave orders that the
wounded - those who had not perished in the cold damps of the night -
should be committed to the care of the surgeons, while the priests were
occupied with administering confession and absolution to the dying.  Four
large graves or pits were dug, in which the bodies of the slain - the
conquerors and the conquered - were heaped indiscriminately together.  But
the remains of Alvarez de Holguin and several other cavaliers of
distinction were transported to Guamanga, where they were buried with the
solemnities suited to their rank; and the tattered banners won from their
vanquished countrymen waved over their monuments, the melancholy trophies
of their victory.

     The number of killed is variously reported, - from three hundred to five
hundred on both sides. ^30 The mortality was greatest among the conquerors,
who suffered more from the cannon of the enemy before the action, than the
latter suffered in the rout that followed it.  The number of wounded was still
greater; and full half of the survivors of Almagro's party were made
prisoners.  Many, indeed, escaped from the field to the neighbouring town of
Guamanga, where they took refuge in the churches and monasteries.  But their
asylum was not respected, and they were dragged forth and thrown into prison.
Their brave young commander fled with a few followers only to Cuzco, where he
was instantly arrested by the magistrates whom he had himself placed over the
city. ^31

[Footnote 30: Zarate estimates the number at three hundred.  Uscategui,
who belonged to the Almagrian party, and Garcilasso, both rate it as high
as five hundred.]

[Footnote 31: The particulars of the action are gathered from Pedro
Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Carta de Ventura Beltran, Ms. - Zarate,
Zarate Conq. del Peru, lib. 4, cap. 17-20.  - Naharro, Relacion Sumaria,
Ms. - Dicho del Capitan Francisco de Carbajal sobre la informacion hecha
en el Cuzco en 1543 a favor de Vaca de Castro, Ms. - Carta del Cabildo de
Arequipa al Emperador, Ms. - Carta de Barrio Nuevo, Ms. - Gomara, Hist. de
las Ind., cap. 149. - Garcilas