The Magdalena campaign was a military operation from late 1812 to early 1813, led by the independentists Simón Bolívar and Pierre Labatut against royalists and the crown of Spain in New Granada (present-day Colombia).

The campaign resulted in the revolutionary United Provinces of New Grenada taking control of the Magdalena River, which connects the port city of Cartagena with the interior of Colombia.

[2] The city was left isolated and surrounded by royalist troops in Ayapel and Panama to the east and Santa Marta to the west, all of which were receiving a steady stream of supplies from Cuba.

The royalists from Santa Marta prepared to march against Cartagena by assembling a force of one thousand five hundred soldiers on the banks of the Magdalena River; their first target was Mompox whose residents fought back.

[7] In the meantime many of the republican exiles from Venezuela joined up with colonel Manuel Cortés Campomanes, who advanced down the Magdalena with a force of six hundred men, but were ambushed by royalist militias under the command of Aguardole Rebustillo at the confluence of the Mancomaján River.

[12] Shortly afterward, the Frenchman Louis Fernand Chatillon, with a flotilla of a brig, two corvettes and some smaller ships, transported a thousand militiamen to retake Santa Marta.

[13] On 30 May 1813, Francisco Montalvo y Ambulodi, newly appointed Captain General of the New Kingdom of Granada, arrived at Santa Marta (the Cortes of Cádiz had suppressed the title of Viceroy).