Battle of Bucaramanga (1899)

This article is about the Thousand Days' War battle. For the 1854 Colombian Civil War battle, see Battle of Bucaramanga (1854).

Battle of Bucaramanga
Part of the Santander Campaign of the Thousand Days' War

Sketch of the Battle of Bucaramanga by rebel colonel Peregrino Rivera Arce, 1900
Date12–13 November 1899
Location
Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia
Result Conservative victory
Belligerents
Colombian government
Conservatives		 Liberal rebels
Commanders and leaders
Strength
2,500 3,000
Casualties and losses
5 officers and 2 civilians wounded
No reliable estimates on additional casualties		 1,000 killed
500 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.

  1. ^ Plazas Olarte, Guillermo (1985). La guerra civil de los Mil Días: estudio militar (in Spanish). Tunja: Academia Boyacense de Historia. p. 54.
  2. ^ Grueso, Eduardo Riascos (1950). Geografía guerrera de Colombia (in Spanish). Impr. Bolivariana. p. 24.
  3. ^ de la Pedraja Tomán, René (2006). Wars of Latin America, 1899-1941. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 10–11.