Mr. Buck to Mr. Bayard.
Lima, Peru, October 24, 1885. (Received November 16.)
Sir: In my No. 45, October 17, I advised you of a Government success at Cajamarca on the 7th instant. Since then the official report of Prefect Augustin Moreno has reached here. He states that the whole Government force engaged in the fight numbered 731 men, of which 583 were troops of the line, and that the revolutionists, under Romero Mores, numbered in all 1,800 men, including Battalions de Truxillo 400, de Puga 250, and columns Cajalamba, &c., 501, and cavalry 180, amounting in all to 1,340 regulars. He states the Government lost 1 regimental officer and 58 soldiers killed, and 6 officers and 51 soldiers wounded. Romero’s loss is stated at 109 killed, while the number of wounded is not given, but is estimated as great.
The Government claims to have official news of a fight at Casapalca, near the terminus of the Oroya Railroad, in which it is stated some two or three hundred of the forces under Pacheco Cespedes attacked columns Huanta and Ayacucho, and were badly defeated.
It is claimed Cespedes was wounded in the arm, and that his forces have dispersed. Official reports here have to be taken like other news, with many degrees of allowance. But it seems to be a fact, as indicated in the fight at Cajamarca and as testified upon the persons of prisoners and deserters from Cáceres’s army, that the revolutionists are surprisingly well provided with arms and cartridges.
The Government forces in the neighborhood of Chiclayo, after their hard march over the Cordilleras, were said to be in bad condition as to shoes and clothing, and the Government has been forwarding these and other supplies from here. They seem to have no adequate commissary arrangements, and this difficulty seems to clog them at every step into the interior. Reports reach here of small affrays at Pampas and at Cusi, to the southward of Huancayo, in Jauja valley, between volunteers and montoneros, in which the latter were defeated.
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I have, &c.,