The autonomous rebel armies shifted to new positions on and around the heights of Cerro Tasajero [es], north of Cúcuta and close to the border with Venezuela.

There is debate over why the Conservatives fled, but most sources agree that Uribe personally led a charge across La Laja Bridge that triggered the rout.

The Liberal triumph at the Battle of Peralonso gave the rebellion much-needed momentum, improving morale and logistics thanks to the large quantity of materiel captured from the fleeing Conservatives.

[10] In the aftermath of their triumph, Uribe and Herrera agreed to name Gabriel Vargas Santos the Supreme Director of the War for the Liberal side, as well as the Provisional President of Colombia, in a direct challenge to Manuel Antonio Sanclemente's Conservative administration.

Vargas Santos, however, failed to capitalize on the momentum of the Liberal victory at Peralonso and mostly delayed any further action in the Santander Campaign until the Battle of Palonegro in May 1900.

This city was held by Benjamín Herrera’s army and close to the Venezuelan border, where the rebels hoped to receive military and economic support from Cipriano Castro.

[7] This delay allowed Uribe to arrive safely in Cúcuta and link up not only with Herrera, but also General Justo L. Durán, who had raised his own autonomous rebel army.

They converged around Cerro Tasajero, a strategic hill protected by the Táchira River and the Venezuelan border to the west, and the Aguablanca rail line linking Cúcuta to Puerto Villamizar.

[16][4] Several Conservative generals, including Ramón González Valencia, protested and sent Casabianca a telegram informing him that they awaited his arrival so that they could recognize him as commander of the Northeastern Theater.

[17] Upon Casabianca’s arrival, however, he realized that Bogotá had not granted him the position and opted to return to his original posting on the Atlantic coast in order to avoid a potential revolt within the Conservative ranks.

While the Conservative leadership disputed command of the Northeastern Theater, the autonomous Liberal armies awaited their opponent’s move from their positions in and around Cerro Tasajero, a hill on the border with Venezuela.

[21][25] As a result, the Liberals were unable to push the government forces back and sustained heavy losses trying to take La Laja Bridge.

[24] This gave the government forces a significant advantage and allowed them to slowly push the Liberals back, wounding Herrera in the leg in the process.

[28] The Liberal forces drove their enemy from the field, ending the pursuit at nightfall, where they returned to recover the weapons, munitions, and other materials that the Conservatives had left where they fled.

[29] Colombian historian Jorge Martínez Landínez has argued that Herrera’s tactical ability in directing the fighting before he was wounded created the conditions for Uribe’s charge to succeed.

Some sources claimed that Uribe’s charge across La Laja Bridge succeeded only because the Minister of War, José Santos, had sent Villamizar a telegram ordering him to cede the field to the rebels.

[34] René de la Pedraja explains the Conservative defeat as the result of the government soldiers at La Laja having “collapsed behind the walls because without food or reinforcements and with little water, they were exhausted by two days of nearly continuous fighting.”[35] Rafael Pardo Rueda suggests that Valencia mistakenly believed Uribe’s charge to be much bigger than it really was, and consequently ordered the withdrawal because he thought the Liberal army had seized the initiative.

[28] It reversed a string of near-constant losses that they had suffered since the start of the war two months earlier, and it elevated Uribe to celebrity status within the Liberal ranks.

After Uribe’s popularity increased as a result of his charge across La Laja Bridge, Herrera and other Liberal generals conspired to limit his influence.

[37] In order to curb his rise to power, on 25 December they named Gabriel Vargas Santos to serve as the rebels’ provisional president of the Republic of Colombia.

The Conservative army, by now under the command of Próspero Pinzón (Casabianca had been promoted to Minister of War after Sanclemente fired Santos on 2 May),[38][40] intercepted and defeated the Liberals at Palonegro.