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Updated: May 29, 2025
He had recommended justice to Santander, who, though otherwise a distinguished officer, an able general and patriot, marred the fame he had acquired by this stupid act of cruelty, an act not to be justified even by the fact that Barreiro had ordered, without any form of law, the execution of many prisoners of war.
Placing a large part of his troops in ambush and manœuvring so as to get his cavalry in the enemy’s rear, he advanced to the attack with a narrow front. On this Barreiro made a furious assault, forcing his opponents to recoil.
Once, when a priest was imploring that the lives of prisoners be spared, Barreiro answered: "I am shooting them as I should shoot Bolivar were he ever to fall into my hands." Santander published a proclamation in which he tried to vindicate his conduct, but history has been just in its severity, condemning him unreservedly.
Barreiro, finding himself unexpectedly cut off from his centre of supplies, fell back upon Venta Quemada, where he was soon followed by his foe, anxious to deal a decisive blow before the royal forces could concentrate. Boyacá, the site now occupied by the hostile armies, was a wooded and mountainous country and one well suited to Bolivar’s characteristic tactics.
General Valencia, however, ordered a thorough reconnoissance by General Mendoza, an engineer officer, who reported "that Padierna was absolutely indefensible, and that it was believed best to retire for reasons expressed in his note." General Valencia ordered Colonel Barreiro to Zacatepetl to watch and report the movements of the enemy.
Resting at this point, Bolivar sent back assistance to the stragglers who still lingered on the road, and despatched parties to collect horses and communicate with the few guerillas who roamed about that region. Barreiro, the Spanish commander, held the Tunja province with two thousand infantry and four hundred horse.
He received also at this time the distressing news of the execution, ordered by Santander, of Barreiro and the other Spanish prisoners taken in Boyaca. Bolivar had proposed to the viceroy an exchange of prisoners, but the viceroy had not even answered Bolivar's communication.
The supporting line were three battalions. The reserve at Anzaldo, a mixed company of infantry and cavalry, was the command of General Solos, supported on the right by two regiments of infantry. Pillow's and Twiggs's divisions were observed by Colonel Barreiro to be moving over the mountain of Zacatepetl and the pedregal.
Barreiro, the commander of the royalists, fell prisoner to Bolivar's troops. This battle occurred on August 7, 1819, and was not only a complete victory for the forces of independence, but also meant practically the end of the Spanish regime in Nueva Granada.
General Barreiro was taken prisoner on the field of battle, throwing away his sword when he saw that escape was impossible, to save himself the mortification of surrendering it to General Bolivar. Colonel Ximenes, his second in command, was also taken, together with most of the officers and more than sixteen hundred men.
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