Fortune itself seemed to have abandoned the army of the republic. Its greatest patron, Alexandre Pétion, had died of a raging case of typhoid fever in Port-au-Prince on March 29. In May, Páez was defeated on the plains of Cojedes. Bolívar was forced to retire from the front lines, suffering from a painful case of anthrax pustules he had probably contracted from infected horses or mules. “My lesions are getting better,” he wrote one of his generals wistfully. “One has already burst and soon I’ll be able to get on my horse again, although I doubt I’ll be rid of these wounds in three, even four days. That said, if there’s the slightest need, I’m ready to march, even if they have to carry me in a litter.”
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