| Battle of Bucaramanga | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Santander Campaign of the Thousand Days' War | |||||||
&sq=&lang=en&file=File:Battle_of_Bucaramanga_Peregrino_Rivera_Arce.jpg) Sketch of the Battle of Bucaramanga by rebel colonel Peregrino Rivera Arce, 1900 | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Colombian government Conservatives |
 Liberal rebels | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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| Strength | |||||||
| 2,500 | 3,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
5 officers and 2 civilians wounded No reliable estimates on additional casualties |
1,500 killed and wounded Numerous POWs[1] | ||||||
The Battle of Bucaramanga (Spanish: Batalla de Bucaramanga) took place during the Santander Campaign of the Thousand Days' War in Colombia. It ended on 13 November 1899 with a victory of the Conservative forces over the Liberals after a two day battle.[2] After an earlier defeat in a naval engagement on the Magdalena River, the Liberal rebels skirmished with the Conservative government around Piedecuesta in late October. The Conservative forces under General Juan B. Tovar conducted a fighting retreat to Bucaramanga.
At the start of November 1899, Liberal troops under General Benjamín Herrera seized Cúcuta from the Conservative garrison under Luis Morales Berti, providing a strategic base of operations for the rebels in Santander.[3] Liberal General Rafael Uribe Uribe's forces soon advanced on Bucaramanga. They were ultimately repelled by Conservative General Vicente Villamizar, losing 1,000 dead and 500 wounded.
- ^ Plazas Olarte, Guillermo (1985). La guerra civil de los Mil Días: estudio militar (in Spanish). Tunja: Academia Boyacense de Historia. p. 54.
- ^ Grueso, Eduardo Riascos (1950). Geografía guerrera de Colombia (in Spanish). Impr. Bolivariana. p. 24.
- ^ de la Pedraja Tomán, René (2006). Wars of Latin America, 1899-1941. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 10–11.