The reactionary president was enthusiastically greeted at Guadalajara by his partisans, and started with about 3,000 men and a few artillerymen for Colima, where the liberals under Ogazon, Rocha, and others, to the number of about 5,000, were concentrated in the barrancas of Atenquique and Beltran. He flanked the position on the 18th of December at a place called Èl Perico with two battalions, went to Tuxpan River defended by Rojas' forces, whom he defeated, and on the 22d entered Colima. The next day Miramon attacked his opponents on the opposite height of the barranca of Tonila, and on the 24th drove them hence, capturing prisoners and artillery.[1] After that Miramon hastened on to Mexico, where he arrived on the 7th of January, 1860, and began preparations for a campaign in Vera Cruz. The reactionists now believed themselves invincible. At the end of 1859 they held sway as far as Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosí; at the lastnamed place Vega's brigade of Woll's division had arrived on the 25th of November. Woll himself had reoccupied Zacatecas the 21st.
President Juarez began to fear that he would be left without the means to cure the maladies of his country. This apprehension brought him at last to give a willing ear to the proposals of the American minister, McLane, and to accept United States volunteers in the liberal ranks. President Buchanan and his cabinet, setting aside the neutrality laws, permitted the exportation of war material, giving further evidence of their protection to the liberal party in the treaty that bore the name of McLane-Ocampo, signed the 14th
- ↑ La Opinion de Sinaloa, Jan. 29. 1860.
him. He wanted each general to do his part. 'De lo contrario,' he said in one of his despatches which was intercepted, 'se perderá el gobierno, y_nos llevará á todos en su caida.' Marquez, Manif., 1-42; Diario de Avisos, Dec. 12, 1859; Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, v. 264-5. It seems, however, that Miramon's visit to Guadalajara on that occasion had been mainly caused by the attempt of Marquez to proclaim Santa Anna president. See Miramon's letter to Maximilian at Querétaro, in Zamacois, Hist. Méj., xviii. 1022-3.
