On 20 February 1813 the Army of the North under General Manuel Belgrano defeated the royalist army of General Pío Tristán on the plain of Castañares, at the northern edge of the city of Salta in what is now Argentina. After a march through the hills around Tristán's defenses, Belgrano attacked from the north, broke the royalist line and drove it back into the city, where Tristán surrendered the same afternoon. Belgrano let the beaten army go home on parole, and the dead of both sides were buried in one grave under a cross for the victors and the vanquished.
After Tucumán
The revolutionary government in Buenos Aires had been fighting the royalist forces of Upper Peru, today Bolivia, since 1810. In September 1812 Belgrano had beaten Tristán at Tucumán, and over the following months he trained and enlarged his army before marching north toward Salta.1
On the way, on the banks of the Pasaje river, the army swore loyalty to the new Assembly in Buenos Aires and to the blue and white flag Belgrano had designed. Since then the river has been called the Juramento, the river of the Oath. According to La Gaceta, the oath was taken on 13 February. Salta is also remembered as the first battle in which that flag flew.2
Around the pass
Tristán had fortified the Portezuelos, the gaps in San Bernardo hill east of the city that were thought to be the only way into the valley. A local officer, Captain Apolinario Saravia, offered to lead the army by a rough, little-known track through the hills, and he went into the city disguised as a muleteer to see where the royalists stood. In rain and darkness the army dragged its guns through the Chachapoyas ravine, and on 19 February it stood on the plain of Castañares north of Salta, astride the road to Jujuy.3
Tristán had to turn his whole army around to face north. Río Negro quotes Bartolomé Mitre's account that he exclaimed it could only have been done if they were birds. According to La Gaceta, Belgrano had about 3,000 men and 10 guns, and Tristán 3,388 men, with 10 guns in his front line.4
The fight for the city
On the morning of 20 February Belgrano advanced with his infantry in five columns, cavalry on both wings and a reserve, with which he rode himself. In La Gaceta's account, the first attack, by Manuel Dorrego against the royalist left, was thrown back, while royalist skirmishers fired on the patriot left from the slopes of San Bernardo hill. Belgrano sent Dorrego against the royalist left again, and this time it broke; the royalist center gave way next, and the patriot infantry fought its way into the streets of Salta. The royalists were trapped in and around the main square, and Tristán asked for terms that afternoon.5
His envoy, Colonel Felipe de la Hera, agreed that the royalist army would march out the next day with the honors of war and hand over its guns, arms and flags, and that its men would go free after swearing not to fight the revolution again. The two commanders were old acquaintances: Belgrano and Tristán had known each other since their student days in Spain.6
Victors and vanquished
The figures vary. Casa Rosada says more than 3,000 royalist soldiers were taken prisoner, Canal26 that Belgrano spared more than 2,000, and La Gaceta that 2,776 officers and men surrendered the next day. La Gaceta gives 481 royalist dead and 114 wounded, against 103 patriot dead and 433 wounded. Belgrano had the fallen of both sides laid in one grave under a wooden cross reading “Vencedores y vencidos en Salta”, victors and vanquished at Salta, and its remains are kept in the church of La Merced.7
The parole did not hold. Many of the released men took up arms again in Upper Peru. Belgrano pushed north but was beaten later in 1813 at Vilcapugio and Ayohuma. The Assembly voted him a prize of 40,000 pesos for Tucumán and Salta, and he gave it to found four schools in Tarija, Jujuy, Tucumán and Santiago del Estero. A generation later, Chile fought Peru and Bolivia, as told on our page on Casma, 1839.8
