The centre kept up the action for a time, but with both wings
in retreat it also was soon forced back, and the whole royalist army was
demoralized.
The patriots did not fail to press their advantage to the utmost. On all
sides the royalists were cut down or captured, until nearly half their
force were killed and wounded and most of the remainder taken prisoners. A
stand was made by those at the farm house, but they were soon driven out,
and about five hundred of them killed and wounded in the court and
vineyard adjoining. Of the total army less than three hundred escaped,
General Osorio and some other officers among them. These fled to
Concepcion, and embarked from there to Peru. Of the patriots more than a
thousand had fallen in the hot engagement.
This brilliant and decisive victory, known as the battle of the Maypo,
gave San Martin immense renown, and justly so, for it established the
independence of Chili. Nor was that all, for it broke the power which
Abascal had long sustained in Peru, and opened the way for the freeing of
that land from the rule of Spain.
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