Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/263

Rh the city was the extension of the general pardon, of which many availed themselves. In reorganizing the administration, he appointed Torcuato Trujillo comandante general of the province, whose associate, the brigadier García Dávila, presently arrived in company with the bishop elect, Abad y Queipo, Merino, the intendente ad interim, and other officials, who, as the reader will recollect, had fled from the city at the first approach of Hidalgo.

Calleja in his plan of operations had calculated that Cruz would be able to leave Valladolid on the 1st of January; he was however detained in that city until the 7th. This delay necessarily interfered with the carrying-out of Calleja's arrangements, but in addition to this, Hidalgo was forming plans for the purpose of preventing the union of Cruz's forces with those of Calleja, and had instructed Colonel Ruperto Mier, who was stationed at Zamora, to oppose the former's advance. Mier, therefore, at the head of 10,000 or 12,000 men, with twenty-seven pieces of artillery, took up an almost impregnable position on the heights commanding the mountain gorge of Urepetiro, about four leagues to the south-east of Zamora, and through which Cruz would necessarily have to pass.

On the 14th of January Cruz, whose force numbered 2,000, principally infantry, with eight pieces of artillery, approached the mountain pass, which he found occupied by the revolutionary army. He forth with ordered his advance guard to open attack by moving against the enemy's position along the banks of a stream flowing down the gorge. The insurgents' batteries, however, commanded the approach, and a well-sustained fire being opened upon the assailants,