Battle of Boyacá

7 August 1819: a race for the bridge

On 7 August 1819, José María Barreiro's Royalist Third Division marched toward the bridge over the Boyacá, or Teatinos, stream, trying to reopen its route to Santafé. Simón Bolívar moved his army off the main road to stop it.

Fighting began about 2 p.m. near Casa de Teja. Bolívar had about 2,850 men; Barreiro about 2,760, of whom some 2,300 were infantry.

Two hours, two attacks

Francisco de Paula Santander engaged the Royalist vanguard, his infantry and guides crossing the stream around the bridge. José Antonio Anzoátegui led the attack that surrounded the main body and forced its surrender.

The Royalist formation broke, and the fighting was over by about 4 p.m. Barreiro, his second-in-command Francisco Jiménez, numerous officers and more than 1,600 soldiers were taken; Pedro Martínez, a soldier of the Rifles battalion whom later accounts identify as the very young Pedro Pascasio Martínez, captured Barreiro himself.

Carlos Soublette signed the army's bulletin at Ventaquemada the next day, reporting 13 Republicans killed and 53 wounded.

Santafé, three days later

Within days Viceroy Juan de Sámano and other Royalist officials abandoned Santafé, and Bolívar's army entered the capital on 10 August.

That removed the principal Royalist field force defending central New Granada, though it did not end the war: Royalist resistance continued in other regions, and the Republic of Colombia was constituted only later, in December 1819.

The Museo Nacional cautions that detailed tactical narratives of the battle differ, because the reports were written hurriedly amid battlefield confusion.