of independence. The country was in
revolution against the Spanish rule. San Martin was not only an
American, but a Creole; he was unselfish, truthful, the soul of
honor, and of all men in the world the one that would seem best
fitted to lead the cause of the South American patriots. He was
destined to become "the greatest of the Creoles of the New World."

Soon after the arrival of San Martin in Buenos Ayres he married Dona
Remedios Esculada, and Mercedes, a daughter of this marriage, shared
with him his voluntary exile after the conquest of Peru.

Appointed at once to a high military position under the Argentine
Government, he conceived the plan of creating an army of the Andes,
of crossing the Cordillera, and of driving the Spaniards from Chile.

Mendoza, with which Buenos Ayres is now connected by railroad, lies
on an elevation under the snowy Cordilleras. San Martin made his
military camp here. On January 17, 1817, he began his march up the
Andes, one of the most perilous achievements of modern warfare. The
summit of the Uspallata Pass, over which the army was to climb, is
12,500 feet above the level of the sea, or 4,000 feet higher than
the Pass of St. Bernard.

The 17th, on which the army set forth, was a high holiday in
Mendoza. The plaza was gay with banners, and the streets with
patriotic decorations. The ladies of the city presented an
embroidered flag to San Martin. The general, above whose head
gleamed the snowy heights of the Andes, ascended a platform in the
plaza, and waved this flag over his head, and shouted:

"Soldiers, behold the first flag of independence!"

There arose a great shout of "Viva la Patria!"

"Soldiers, swear to sustain it."

"We swear," answered the army, as one man.

Salvos of musketry and artillery followed. Mitre, in his "Life of
San Martin," as presented to us in the condensed translation of
Pilling, eloquently says that this flag rose "for the redemption of
one-half of South America, passed the Cordilleras, waved in triumph
along the Pacific coast, floated over the foundations of two new
republics, aided in the liberation of another, and after sixty-four
years served as a funeral pall to the body of the hero, who thus
delivered it to the care of the immortal Army of the Andes."

The mountains rose above the departing army, piercing the sky in the
fading day. Up they climbed, putting to flight the condors. The men
suffered greatly from the rarefaction of the air. Even