Victoria Persson

Victoria Persson (born 1823, Ciudad Apofénica, DC; died 1858, Sórabol, DC) was an officer and war hero in the Ardisphere. She was a Federal Armies Colonel (Coronel) during the Ardispherian Civil War, who was promoted to brevet Brigadier General by President Keum himself just prior to the battle at Cerro Tempestad against the Autonomists, during which she was badly wounded. She died from complications related to her injury the following year.

Born on a rancho near Ciudad Apofénica to a small land-holding family, her parents were both immigrants. As a child, Persson was always most interested in riding horses, and she was a working ranch-hand by her mid teenage years. She did not neglect her studies, however, and so for half of each year she attended the then-prestigious Liceo Larandia (a boarding school, as most high schools were at that time) in Torre de Ladrillo, DC. At that time, it was rare for people to attend university, but on the strong recommendation of her teachers, she began studies in derecho (law) at the Universidad Persiles in Faro (what later became the Universidad de Villa Constitución when it moved to its present location) in 1840. Due to the political turmoil in the capital at that time, however, as well as her father's incapacitating illness back at the rancho, she quit her studies the following year and returned to her home.

Through the 1840s she managed the family rancho despite her youth, and like most small landowners, became increasingly involved in the local militia, which at that time was experiencing trouble from bands of "Autonomists" (really mostly just bandits using the black Autonomist flag to justify their actions) in the Sierra de los Cientoocho and the ravines and valleys nearby. Thus, when the Civil War broke out in earnest in 1854 after President Huidobro's auto-coup, she was already a local militia captain. She immediately volunteered to form a unit in the Federal Army.

With her neighbor, militia Coronel Aquilino Sanpedro, she helped to create the 96th "Apofénicos" Cavalry regiment, becoming captain of 201st Batallion. They trained at Fuerte Cuadrado, DC, through the winter of 1854. Their first military engagement was near Cerro Sombrero, DC (at that time just agricultural land far removed from the capital), during which Sanpedro was killed. She thus became commander of her regiment early in the war. She showed remarkable military acumen in subsequent battles through 1855 and 1856, and was noted for her clever tactics during the defense of Fin Ghiuletti at the time of the Autonmist northward offensive in the summer of 1856-57.

After that, she was invited to assist General Donosio Kim in instructing new officers at the War College, which at that time was based at the large Presidio Palacio (the remnant of which is the small Guarnición Donosio Kim, Barrio Providencia, in Delegación V of the capital). However, as the Federalists experienced setbacks through the spring of 1857, she returned to the field with her regiment in November. In early December of 1857, President Keum made a visit to the recently retaken Ciudad Quiroga, and placed her in command of the 22nd Brigade, making her a brevet Brigadier General. During the southeast offensive, her unit experienced a temporary siege at Cerro Tempestad, during which she was badly injured when a bullet passed through her right foot. She refused to give up her command, however, and successfully led the brigade over the coast ranges to retake Puerto Desolado in March of 1858, allowing the navy to occupy the port and thus retake the islands to the west, and by July the Autonomist Union capital at El Cabo had fallen.

Her foot injury never healed properly, however, and in November of 1858 she died of fever from infection related to the injury at the military hospital in Sórabol.

Persson is revered in the Ardisphere as one of the great Federalist war heroes of the civil war era, and some have said that she may have ended up a major political figure in the post-war period had she not died.