insurgents again assailed the royalist forces with great intrepidity, but with no better success.[1] Recacho, however, having lost several of his best officers, deemed it prudent to retreat to Sula and wait for reënforcements. There he received orders to return to Guadalajara, and the expedition ended without any serious blow having been inflicted upon the insurgents.[2]
Still more unsuccessful was Villaseñor in his operations at Zacoalco. Torres was a military man by instinct. It is stated that before the engagement he showed the Indians, with a stick on the ground, how to deploy, in order to surround the enemy.[3] Be this as it may, his manœuvres were so successful that Villaseñor's division was shortly overthrown and almost destroyed, no less than 276 being slain.[4] So great was the shower of stones discharged by the Indians that the enemy's muskets were badly battered. The flower of the youth of Guadalajara who formed the newly recruited volunteer companies, deficient in training and unaccustomed to hardship, perished. Villaseñor and the captains of two companies were made prisoners, and Gariburu, a lieutenant of the regiment of la Corona, was killed.[5]
- ↑ Recacho, in his report to the viceroy, says that the enemy marched up to the cannon's mouth, and when fired upon with grape and canister closed their ranks and boldly charged again, 'avanzando con una temeridad increible.' Gaz. de Mex. (1811), ii. 159.
- ↑ 'El destacamento de la Barca volvió lleno de terror.' Carta de Abarca, ut sup., 100. Mora's account of this engagement is incorrect. He states that Torres was commander of the insurgents, and that Recacho was completely beaten. Mej. y sus Rev., iv. 92.
- ↑ Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., i. 142.
- ↑ Of these, 100 were Europeans, the remainder Creoles pressed in the service. Oficio de Torres, Alaman, Hist. Mej., ii. ap. 59-60. In an account of this engagement, obtained by J. Hernandez in January 1867 from three natives who were present at the action, the number of killed is stated to have been 257. Torres instructed the Indians to throw themselves upon the ground at each discharge of the artillery, and then keep closing in as quickly as possible. These tactics were so successful that the insurgents lost only two killed and thirteen wounded. Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., ii. 202-3.
- ↑ During the action, which took place on the same day that Calleja dispersed the insurgents at Aculco, the militia of Colima passed over to the enemy. Bustamante relates that before the battle, Torres proposed to Villaseñor that the Americans should retire and leave the Europeans to engage with him if they wished. Villaseñor's reply was that if he had Torres in his power he would hang him, 'que era un indecente mulato.' Cuad. Hist., i. 142, 145.
