Díaz, José Eduvigis (1833–1867)

José Eduvigis Díaz (b. 1833; d. 7 February 1867), Paraguayan soldier. Born in Pirayú, Díaz entered the military at age nineteen and showed sufficient promise as a soldier to receive several important appointments by the early 1860s. He was police chief of Asunción when the War of the Triple Alliance broke out in 1864. One year later, Díaz participated in the Corrientes campaign, during which he caught the eye of President Francisco Solano López for having ferried 100,000 head of cattle to the Paraguayan lines with the Allied armies in close pursuit. Díaz rose quickly to the rank of general and fought in engagements at Corrales, Tuyutí, and Boquerón. His greatest achievement, however, came in September 1866, when his troops, defending reinforced trench-works at Curupayty, repulsed a massive Allied attack, killing 9,000 of the enemy and suffering almost no losses themselves.

For a short time, Díaz was feted as López's favorite, but in January 1867, while on a reconnaissance patrol along the Paraguay River, his canoe was hit by a Brazilian cannonball, which shattered his leg. Despite the ministrations of several army doctors, septicemia soon set in, and Díaz died at López's encampment at Paso Pucú.

See alsoParaguay: The Nineteenth Century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charles J. Kolinski, Independence or Death! The Story of the Paraguayan War (1965).

Carlos Zubizarreta, Cien vidas paraguayas, 2d ed. (1985), pp. 164-170.

Additional Bibliography

Chaves, Julio César. El general Díaz; biografía del vencedor de Curupaity. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Nizza, 1957.

Leuchars, Chris. To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Marco, Miguel Angel de. La Guerra del Paraguay. Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1995.

Montezuma Hurtado, Alberto. "Un héroe griego." Correo de los Andes 40 (September-October 1986): 88-93.

                                Thomas L. Whigham