Peruanos por el Rey!
Following the debacle of Chacabuco, there was a near collapse of the Royalist cause in Santiago. The Independistas advanced down to Concepcion and besieged The port of Talcahuano, whilst frantically recruiting a Chilean army.
Perhaps trying for a repeat of the Reconquista of the Patria Vieja, the Viceroy Pezuela formed a new army. At its core were three very strong regiments of infantry, a weak regiment of cavalry, and a horse artillery detachment. Combined with the two regiments of infantry and two of cavalry in Chile, this army would match the combined Army of the Andes and the new Chilean army. However, one of the Royalist infantry regiments had 80% of its ranks filled with hard bitten veterans of the Peninsular war.
The men of these regiments dressed in very modern uniforms made of a cotton canvas material called brin. Brin is generally considered to be an orangey version of the yellowy off white of unbleached cotton. Chileans will call this “te con leche”, be aware that by Anglo Saxon standards Chileans drink their tea very weak.
I pondered on why this should be so to no effect. Then one year, instead of buying a new khaki shirt for fieldwork at Christmas, I had to buy one in a colour called oatmeal – basically a pale off white. One day in the Atacama desert and it was noticeably pinkish orange in hue from the fine iron oxide dust that fills the air. As the cotton fields in Peru are grown in river valley controlled oases within the Atacama desert my interpretation is that the cotton became impregnated with this dust.
Most of this army was defeated at Maipu.
Now for the figures:
Regimiento Burgos
Burgos was over 1000 men strong, about 210 of them Peruvians and the rest Peninsulares, many veterans of the war against Bonaparte. Their uniform is reasonably easy to paint as it did away with many of the ornaments common on Napoleonic soldiers. Daniel Pedrazzoli’s http://www.regimientosdeamerica.com/index.php?p=2_1_Home-page site used to show these regiment’s grenadiers in fur caps covered by brin covers. Now, his uniform sheets show them in shakoes. Well I had bought the damn grenadiers and am damned if I am not going to use them. In order to give the appearance of canvas covers I painted the headgear with PVC glue before priming.
For San Martin’s Ejercito de los Andes click here
Their Royalist opponents may be found here:
The Chilean Army which reinforced San Martin may be found here:
grizzstoysoldiers 