There, on August 6, 1824, he repelled an onslaught by Canterac and drove that leader back in headlong flight.
Believing, however, that the position he held was too perilous to risk an offensive, he entrusted the military command to Sucre and returned to headquarters.
The royalists had now come to realize that only a supreme effort could save them.

They must overwhelm Sucre before reinforcements could reach him, and to this end an army of upwards of ten thousand was assembled.
On the 9th of December it encountered Sucre and his six thousand soldiers in the valley of Ayacucho, or "Corner of Death," where the patriot general had entrenched his army with admirable skill.

The result was a total defeat for the royalists--the Waterloo of Spain in South America.

The battle thus won by ragged and hungry soldiers--whose countersign the night before had been "bread and cheese"-- threw off the yoke of the mother country forever.

The viceroy fell wounded into their hands and Canterac surrendered.