Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/492

476 difficulty the government had now to contend with was a lack of connection or coöperation between one insurgent leader and another, none of them recognizing any superior, and all deriding the junta suprema whenever it attempted to bring them under control. Had there been among them a central authority any conquest over which would have ended the rebellion, the probability is that with the victories already won the royalists could quickly have achieved such conquest. As matters stood, victories only served to multiply insurgent bands and extend the war over a still broader area. Revolution everywhere faced the viceroy. His troops were at times defeated, but were usually victorious. Still they could not be divided and conquer. Experience had, however, formed some officers fit for command, and Venegas himself directed army operations from Mexico, while watching enemies at home.

Morelos continued to annoy the enemy as best he was able. He sent Trujano with 300 men to remove from the haciendas that supplied Puebla and the royalist garrison of Tepeaca all the grain and live-stock, which he was to convey to Tehuacan for his own troops. On the 4th of October he reached the rancho de la Virgen, situated between Tlacotepec and Tepeaca, on the road from Tehuacan to Puebla, and established his headquarters there. Lieutenant-colonel Samaniego, who was at Tepeaca, determined to attempt his capture. Setting out at two o'clock in the morning of the 5th with 300 men of the vanguard division of the royalist army of the south, and having a small mountain howitzer, they silently approached and attacked the place. Trujano managed to keep his force together, and in the house of the rancho made a stout defence. Samaniego then set fire to the building, which drove out the inmates, and Trujano, his friend and most efficient officer Gil, and many of the men were slain. Samaniego having received a wound in his leg which lamed him for life,