Although nothing is known of his early life, at the outbreak of the war, he had recently married and was running a prosperous business in
La Puebla de Arganzón (Burgos), employing 26 "servants" to whom, in August 1809, he offered 100
billon reales for each Frenchman they killed and for each firearm they captured. Shortly thereafter he was able to arm twelve of his men, and now offering 4,000
reales for each mail captured, they started intercepting the French Army's lines of communications. With the French authorities looking for him, he was forced to flee to
La Rioja, where he joined, briefly, the guerrilla bands of Friar Constantino and
Francisco Fernández de Castro, Marquis of Barrio Lucio. Returning to his region, on 25 December 1809 he attacked a detachment of forty French troops at
Nanclares.) and at
San Marcial (31 August). The following October, his division together with
Charles, Count Alten's
Light Division saw action at the pass of
Vera de Bidasoa and, crossing into France, at
Ascaín. Longa's guerilla forces aided in depriving the French forces of intelligence and provided intelligence of French locations to Wellington. Longa also achieved disruption: French internal coordination and logistics were hampered, negatively affecting French discipline and morale. The major achievements of the Battle of Vitoria were a greater French casualty rate vs allied forces (approximately 8,000 to 5,000 respectively) and capture of 151 of 153 French cannons and 415 French
caissons (ammunition chests). Some argue that without forces like Longa's guerillas, French forces would not have been defeated. Within the following month, most French forces left Spain and French rule was practically ended. His detailed service records show three actions in 1809; twenty-three in 1810; nineteen in 1811; fourteen in 1812 and seventeen in 1813, with 2,195 French troops killed and 4,024 taken prisoner. ==Post-war career==