the towns with impunity under all the successive governments, for thirty years past. The national government entrusted to the Governor of San Juan the suppression of these disturbances, assigning to the duty the National Guard of San Juan and Mendoza, a battalion of regulars, and the First Regiment of the Line, commanded by Colonel Sanders, who was famous for having received up to that time fifty-one wounds from knife, bullet, lance, rapier, and sword.
Governor Sarmiento received his appointment to the direction of these military operations on the 8th of April. He had been informed on the 6th of an invasion of Mendoza by adventurers crossing from Chili in his rear. This intelligence, and the outbreak of insurrection in all directions, made the instructions he had received useless and inapplicable, and forced him to rely upon the inspiration of the moment, and to act as the facts of the case required.
Seventeen military expeditions were successively despatched from San Juan, towards the south, east, and north. The conflict of April 2 in San Luis was followed by several others: one in Mendoza, April 13; one in La Rioja, May 21; one in the Playas de Cordova, June 29; one in the Chanar, between the last-named provinces, July 8; one in the Bajo Hondo, between San Juan and La Rioja, August 14, and a final and decisive engagement at Causete, near the gate of the city of San Juan, on October 29. The Argentine montonera, although everywhere beaten, continually reappeared, unexpectedly threatening the place they supposed to be weakest, and mocking the vigilance of the armies in pursuit of them.
