Incorporated into the Carabineros battalion as a cadet, he soon demonstrated his military aptitudes and excellent leadership skills, qualities with which he was able to win the appreciation and esteem of his superiors who began to look at him with deference.

On October 12, 1848, at nightfall, he led a revolt with the Carabineros battalion in favor of General Belzu in Yotala, marching on the city of Sucre, located three leagues away, and successfully seized the plaza.

[4][5] On the morning of the 13th, both forces encountered in the outskirts of the city, and the National Guard were completely overwhelmed by Arguedas' men, who after courageous and almost heroic manoeuvres obtained an unlikely triumph over Velasco.

However, at the behest of General Torrelio, he countermarched with the battalion to Sucre and, before arriving, he was surprised on the banks of the Quirpinchaca stream by a division that had come from Potosí under the orders of President Velasco.

The rebels dispersed to meet again in Oruro under the command of Arguedas, who was promoted to rank of sergeant major by the supreme decree of October 28, promulgated by General Belzu in the revolutionary army.

[6] Arguedas lived retired from the army for about ten years and went to Peru to a small town near the border and stretched out on the barren slopes of a gray mountain range, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.

It happened that, being an employee of some rich owners and merchants of that region, the young Arguedas had managed to seduce the wife of the main employer, from whom he obtained not only favors but also a deep affection.

For instance, when she learned through her loyal servant that her husband was arming the employees of the house and the indigenous workers of the hacienda to kill Arguedas, she went to the farm to inform her lover of what had happened and to warn him of the imminence of the attack.

There was no one who dared to go into the hallway of that low-lying country house, surrounded by the classic Spanish patio of rooms with doors above it and barred windows facing the countryside, with a red roof of tile or blackish of straw, and the clean sun that gilds the paved floor.

When the revolution led by General Belzu broke out in March 1865, having for this reason left office and retired to his home, Arguedas soon realized his mistake and chose to take up arms against Melgarejo.

Colonel Arguedas was acclaimed by the popular masses of La Paz and proclaimed provisional President of Bolivia, being granted the rank of brigadier general.

The people of La Paz, powerful as ever, took up arms and raised a flag in which the two slogans were engraved: "War on Melgarejo; avenge the spilled blood of Belzu".

This popular revolution did not echo any personal ambition, rather it was the spontaneous pronouncement of a people who wanted to establish a truly democratic and constitutional republic; that is why it was called "Constitutionalist".

Both documents contained the typical words of other revolutionary proclamations of Bolivia, such as: the return of freedom to the people; war without quarter to the tyrant; triumph of " the good cause"; cessation of fraud and coercion, theft and embezzlement; convening a national congress ninety days after the republic has been pacified; constitution of the executive power through free election; and the leaders of the revolution may not appear as candidates for the new government; days of glory and well-being for the people, etc., etc.

Arguedas, head of the revolution, organized an army of two thousand men with all the reinforcements that came from Oruro, Cochabamba and Chayanta and even from the most remote provinces of the La Paz Department.

As Melgarejo approached, Arguedas decided to counter march to La Paz, despite the fact that some chiefs who surrounded him, José María de Achá, among them, advised him to wait for the enemy in Oruro or Huanuni.

On the morning of January 24, 1866, Melgarejo, with generals Quintín Quevedo and José María Calderón, spotted the enemy line, extended and barricaded in the mountains.

[16] He held the prefecture of La Paz when War of the Pacific started in 1879; then, Arguedas, resigned from civil office and was appointed by Daza as Commander of the Second Division of the army.