In this depressed state of Chilian affairs a hero came across the
mountains to strike a new blow for liberty. Don Jose de San Martin had
fought valiantly for the independence of Buenos Ayres at the battle of San
Lorenzo. Now the Argentine patriots sent him to the aid of their
fellow-patriots in Chili and Peru. Such was the state of the conflict in
the latter part of 1816, when San Martin, collecting the scattered bands
of Chilian troops and adding them to men of his own command, got together
a formidable array five thousand strong. The "Liberating Army of the
Andes" these were called.
An able organizer was San Martin, and he put his men through a thorough
course of discipline. Those he most depended on were the cavalry, a force
made up of the _Gauchos_, or cattlemen of the Pampas, whose life was
passed in the saddle, and who were genuine centaurs of the plains.
San Martin had the Andes to cross with his army, and this was a task like
that which Hannibal and Bonaparte had accomplished in the Alps. He set out
himself at the head of his cavalry on the 17th of January, 1817, the
infantry and artillery advancing by a different route.
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