Battles of the Chilean War of Independence

28 October 1818 · Talcahuano, Bay of Concepción

Chilean victory; the frigate and several transports captured

In May 1818 the frigate Reina María Isabel sailed from Cádiz escorting a convoy of transports carrying some 2,000 troops to reinforce the royalists in Chile and Peru. Soldiers aboard one transport, Trinidad, mutinied and took her into Buenos Aires, giving away the convoy's orders and its rendezvous at Isla Santa María. Chile's new squadron sailed from Valparaíso under Manuel Blanco Encalada to meet it, and found the frigate at anchor at Talcahuano. As San Martín and Lautaro came in, the Spanish cut their cables and ran her aground; her crew went ashore, and the Chileans boarded and worked her off under fire from the beach. Over the next days, still flying Spanish colours, the squadron took the transports one by one as they reached the rendezvous. The frigate became the Chilean O'Higgins.

3–4 February 1820 · Corral Bay, Valdivia

Chilean victory; the forts of Valdivia taken

Valdivia was Spain's strongest fortress on the Pacific coast: fifteen forts and batteries round Corral Bay with about 110 guns. After his second failure at Callao, Cochrane decided to take it with almost nothing. He borrowed some 250 soldiers under Major Jorge Beauchef at Concepción, added 60 marines under William Miller, and sailed with O'Higgins, the brig Intrépido and the schooner Moctezuma. On the afternoon of 3 February the two small ships landed the troops at the Aguada del Inglés, on the western side of the bay. That night they took Fort Inglés from behind and then ran on from fort to fort, through San Carlos, Amargos and Chorocamayo, to the Castillo de Corral, where about 200 men surrendered after a stiff fight. The next morning the garrisons of Niebla and Mancera, across the bay, abandoned their forts, and the Spanish governor, Colonel Manuel Montoya, fell back on Chiloé. Some 310 attackers had beaten a garrison of about 1,600 men. Intrépido ran aground in the bay and was lost.

5–6 November 1820 · Callao, Peru

Chilean victory; the Spanish flagship cut out

With San Martín's army ashore in Peru, the Spanish squadron lay inside Callao behind a floating boom, guarded by gunboats and covered by the batteries of the Real Felipe and the other forts. Cochrane picked 240 volunteers, 160 seamen and 80 marines, from O'Higgins, Lautaro and Independencia, and led them in 14 boats in two divisions under Captains Thomas Crosbie and Martin Guise. They passed the boom soon after midnight and boarded the frigate Esmeralda, the Spanish flagship, from both sides. After a short, hard fight on her decks she was theirs, and Cochrane, wounded in the thigh, had her cables cut and sailed her out under fire from the forts. Two neutral frigates, the American Macedonian and the British Hyperion, lay near the entrance; Cochrane had his prize show the same signal lights as them, which confused the gunners ashore. The loss of their best ship left the royalists in Peru with little to fight with at sea.