Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/222

206 insurgents again assailed the royalist forces with great intrepidity, but with no better success. 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.

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. 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. 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.