Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/672

656 be comandante general of this region, and who ignominiously stopped to lead the royalists in pursuit of his late comrades, and to influence the surrender of Cuiristaran fortress. A similar misstep was taken by Muñiz. Incensed with Rosales, who after being driven from Zacatecas claimed the post of comandante general in Michoacan, he joined the pursuers against him, and the brave Rosales, overtaken near Tacambaro, fell fighting for the cause.

In Zacatecas revolutionary movements had hardly ever passed beyond Colotlan and the south-east border, and even these dwindled to a shadow under the energetic brigadier Diego García Conde, who infused also greater discipline among his troops. San Luis Potosí was also undisturbed save by frontier movements along its southern lines, and beyond, in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, slight local disturbances alone broke the quiet. In Chihuahua a revolutionary plot had been promptly suppressed in November 1814.

The most northern province in which the war continued to prevail was Guanajuato, the cradle of the revolution; and but for the mining resources, its condition might under the attendant ravages have been reduced to the same deplorable level as in Michoacan. Favored by the mountainous nature of the country, the insurgents managed to find encouragement in occasional successes, and ample supplies to maintain a considerable force under several leaders, as Rosas,