The story of the battle is soon told. The patriots advanced to meet the Spanish attack; musketry volleys on both sides did terrific execution, and the two armies met bayonet in hand. On the left the Spanish columns were unable to make any impression on the Colombian infantry, and while the conflict was still undecided the royalist cavalry rashly charged, hoping to strike a deciding blow. But they were met by a counter-charge of the patriot squadrons and rolled back in defeat. The whole left of the royalist army dispersed, and such was the confusion that the impetuously pursuing Colombians reached the Spanish camp and spiked the artillery, defeating on their way the enemy's centre. In the meantime the Spanish right under Valdez had outflanked the Peruvians who held that part of the line and driven them back, but before he could reach the patriot centre the battle had been decided. Attacked by the victorious cavalry, Valdez's men were cut to pieces, and by one o'clock in the after noon the Spanish army, except the reserve under Canterac, had ceased to exist as an organised body. Of the royalists fourteen hundred were dead and seven hundred wounded, while the patriots had lost six hundred wounded and three hundred dead. The viceroy was wounded and a prisoner, his men deserting and dispersing by hundreds. Canterac sued for terms, and that afternoon fourteen generals, five hundred and sixty-eight officers, and three thousand two hundred privates became prisoners of war. Never was a victory more complete and decisive than Ayacucho. The war for independence was over. Only under Olaneta in far southern Bolivia and at Callao castle did a Spaniard remain under arms. Sucre marched to Cuzco, where he rested and refitted and then went on to Puno and La Paz. Olaneta's troops deserted as the Colombian approached, and the last of the Spanish generals fell at the hands of his own men as he was bravely trying to suppress a mutiny. Callao castle held out for thirteen months, and with its surrender was hauled down the last Spanish ensign which floated on the South American mainland. CHAPTER VI FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE CHILEAN WAR If ever country began an independent existence without any basis for a strong, ordered, and stable government, that country was the Peru of 1826. The interior inhabited by Indians long held in abject subjection by the Spanish generals, the long strip of coast divided by local and factional jealousies, the nation had already miserably failed to unite in face of defeats suffered from the Spaniards, or of the military preponderance first of the Argentines and then of the Colombians.