February 1846 he entered as a pupil the military school, sustained the government in 1847, and that same year took part in the battles fought against the United States army at Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec. A brief synopsis of his early military record is given at foot.[1] Of his action in the revolutionary campaigns against Comonfort's government, and of his career since then, I have sufficiently spoken in the proper places. For his services at the capital, on the 20th of January, 1858, in taking by force the hospicio and ex-acordada on behalf of the reformed plan of Tacubaya, he had been made a general of brigade. On the 22d of December, 1858, he was promoted to general of division. His most recent services to the cause were rendered that same month, by defeating Degollado in the hacienda of Atequiza. Retaking Guadalajara, he pursued the enemy, waded the Tuxpan River at Los Novillos, recovered Colima the 25th, signally routed the constitutionalists at San Joaquin the 26th, and next marched on to the Barrancas de Beltran, where he captured 32 pieces of artillery, together with all the enemy's ammunition and trains. Leaving a garrison in Colima, he returned to Guadalajara.[2]
Miramon proved himself not merely a brave man, but one possessed of great efficiency as a commander, with no small aid from fortune thus far. Some years later, while his courage and daring were fully acknowledged, he was set down to be "no scientific general, and rather an indifferent strategist."[3]
- ↑ In the military school he went through the regular grades of promotion, from corporal to lieutenant of artillery. In 1852 he served in Jalisco, and in 1853 was in some actions under generals Salas and Rosas Landa in the department of Mexico. After that he saw much active service, and rose rapidly, so that we see him on the Gth of July, 1855, a brevet lieut-col, and on the 30th of the same month a fully comnissioned one.
- ↑ It was there that he heard of his election by the junta of notables to the presidency. Rivera, Gob. de Méx., ii. 556.
- ↑ Salm-Salm's Diary, i. 34.
'para sacarse de embarazo, cayó, el sable en mano, sobre la persona con quien habia jugado, y le hizo devolver así su dinero.' Lefêvre, Doc. Maximiliano, i. 399.
