English: This monument in La Punta in the port of Callao, Peru, is in memory of Colonel José Gabriel Gálvez, Peru's highly-respected Minister of War who was killed on 2 May 1866 during the Spanish bombardment of the port. The square in the background is also named after Gálvez.

The Spanish word Torreón normally translates as tower, But this clearly isn't a tower in the normal English sense of the word. However the word can also be translated as meaning turret or keep. The best translation, "Turret of Mercy", seems like a contradiction of terms!

The second of the images reproduced in the comment below shows Peruvians preparing their defences against the anticipated bombardment. The structure near the top right-hand corner of the photograph is almost certainly Torreon de la Merced. There are more photographs of the preparations on photobucket. To view them, start at Torre Junin 2 de Mayo and scroll right until you reach the shot of Torréon de la Merced itself. The photographs include the one I have reproduced below.

Note – Since this was written an account of the incidents concerned has been found in Wars of the Americas. . . by David Marley (1998) and The Bombardment of Paradise: March 31, 1866 by David J. Woods (2011). There is a Kindle version of the latter book. Where the accounts differ, please regard their accounts as being more accurate.

La guerre hispano-américaine, 1866

In April 1863, four Spanish warships arrived in the Chilean port of Valparaíso (Woods says there were only three, although more join them later). They were under the command of Admiral Luis Hernández-Pinzón, a direct descendant of the Pinzón brothers who had accompanied Columbus on his first voyage to South America. They were on their way to San Francisco and had no hostile intentions towards any of their former colonies in South America (Woods says that one of their intentions from the beginning was to obtain reparations from the Peruvian government for the losses that Spain had incurred during Peru's war of liberation). In April 1844, Spain and Chile had established diplomatic relations and the Spanish ships were cordially received in Valparaíso. However, even by the 1860s, Spain had not established similar relations with Peru and Bolivia. Nonetheless, when the Spanish fleet reached Callao, they were well received.

From Callao, the ships set sail for San Francisco. However, before they reach their destination, news reached Pinzón of a fracas that had taken place in Peru during which a Spanish national had been killed. As a result, the Spanish fleet returned to Peru and Pinzón demanded that the Peruvian Government apologise – but no such apology was forthcoming. When the Spanish Government demanded reparations for losses incurred during the War of Peruvian Independence in the 1820s, and the Peruvian Government again refused, the antagonism escalated. In retaliation, Spain sent reinforcements to the area and seized the Chincha Islands, a group of three small islands off Pisco in Peru. The islands were an important source of guano for Peru. Although subsequent hostilities extended much further than the islands themselves, the fact that they started there resulted in those hostilities being referred to as the Chincha Islands War.

After taking the Chincha islands the Spaniards blockaded a number of Peruvian ports. However, by then, the their ships were becoming short of supplies. Soon, one of their gunboats drew into a Chilean port for coal. When Chile refused the request on the grounds that coal was a war supply, friendly relations between the two countries broke down and Chile was drawn into the hostilities. In a subsequent engagement at Papudo, 50 miles north of Valparaíso, a Spanish schooner was captured by Chilean forces. Chile and Peru formally signed an alliance against Spain on 5 December 1865 and, two days later, Peru declared war on Spain. By March, Ecuador and Bolivia had joined the alliance. By then there was a very considerable Spanish Armada under the command of Admiral Castro Méndez Núñez sailing along the west coast of South America. When Chile declared that no Spanish ship should enter a Chilean port, the Spanish fleet retaliated by shelling and burning Valparaíso on 31 March. The results were catastrophic both to the town and to Chile’s merchant Navy.

After his success at Valparaíso, Núñez decided to bomb Callao. The arrival of his 14-strong fleet at Callao on 25 April 1866 prompted Peruvian president Mariano Ignacio Prado to reinforce the port with armaments and men. His Minister of War and the Navy, Colonel José Gabriel Gálvez, was stationed at Torre de La Merced (Tower of Mercy) when hostilities opened at 10:00 on 2 May 1866. The tower can be seen in the map below at the narrowest point of La Punta south of Callao. The hostilities continued until 17:00 by which time considerable damage had been inflicted to both sides. Although the Spanish suffered more than the Peruvians, Núñez declared that he had been the victor. When news of the so-called victory reached Spain itself, there were widespread celebrations. But Núñez was wrong and the celebrations were illusory. The Spanish fleet retreated, the Chincha Islands were returned to Peru and Spain never again attempted to recover any of her former possessions in South America. To this day, 2 May is a day of great celebration in Peru generally and Lima in particular.

Sadly, one of the Peruvian fatalities of the action was the Minister of War himself. As a lawyer, academic and liberal politician, José Gálvez had been greatly respected in Peru and his he was widely mourned. As well as the memorial to him at La Punta, there is a monument to him in Plaza 2 de Mayo in Lima.

And what did the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs say about the bombardments of Callao and Valparaiso in the Spanish chamber of deputies? What he said, amongst other things, was:    "I believe, gentlemen, that when the treatment inflicted upon Spanish subjects; the piratical warfare carried on; the torpedoes; the ships that were expected; and the injury they hoped to inflict upon our squadron by distributing explosive machines at the entrances of Callao and Valparaiso, are taken into consideration; I think that not a doubt can remain in any mind whatever that the bombardment of this last port was an act, painful indeed, but rendered necessary in order to save our honour; and this bombardment was provoked solely and exclusively by the pride and obstinacy of the Republic of Chile".

Present in Lima at the time of the bombardment was my 24-year-old great-grandfather, Henry Taylor. He had landed in Callao on 22 March 1866 and, about a week later, travelled the short distance to Peru’s capital, Lima. On 8 April he was taken sick and was ordered to San Bartholomé, a hospital normally reserved for soldiers of Peru’s national army. It was administered by the French Sisters of Charity. Henry was diagnosed with typhus fever and was still in the hospital when many of the soldiers wounded during the Spanish bombardment of Callao were taken there. There were 32 of them in his ward alone. Four of them died while he was there. He was discharged on 7 May.

Robert Cutts, August 2015