Pedro Alvarez Holguin And Gomez De Tordoya Eminently
Distinguished Themselves On The Side Of The Royalists, Having Mantles Of
White Velvet Richly Embroidered Over Their Armour, Owing To Which They
Were Particularly Marked Out By The Musqueteers Of The Enemy, And Both
Lost Their Lives In Consequence.
Alonso de Alvarado and Carvajal likewise
distinguished themselves signally, particularly the latter, as already
mentioned, in a manner that it seemed almost impossible he should have
escaped.
But by despising death, he appeared to have made it flee from him;
as indeed it often happens during great dangers, that those who meet them
bravely are preserved, while those who shrink are lost. A signal instance
of this happened in the present battle, as a young man who was afraid of
the balls concealed himself behind a projecting rock; where his head was
shattered to pieces by a splinter driven off by a cannon ball[13]. Many
others signalized themselves in the battle, to most of whom the governor
gave competent estates in lands and Indians, when he made the re-partition
of the country, adding his warm acknowledgements for having resigned their
individual interests and resentments in the service of the crown.
The night after the battle was extremely frosty, and as the baggage was
considerably in the rear, only two of the wounded officers had their
wounds dressed, so that a good many of the wounded died of cold during the
night. Next morning, the governor caused every attention to be given to
the wounded, who exceeded four hundred in number[14], and had the dead
buried, ordering the bodies of Holguin and Tordoya to be carried to the
city of Guamanga, where they were magnificently interred.
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