Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/694

678 proved of immense value to drill and lead the undisciplined and capricious field force. Less than three score now remained of that doughty handful. As the leader reflected on their sad fate, tears sprung to his eyes, and for once he yielded to the clamor for revenge by shooting a number of prisoners, although not over forty in all. He soon regretted the act, however, and the more so as day after day revealed how little he could count upon the firmness of his present followers, fine dashing fellows who attacked splendidly, but generally turned before the first resolute resistance with volleys or bayonets, when one minute more of sustained bravery might have overcome it and won the day. Thus the capture of San Luis de la Paz, in the beginning of September, took him four days, when it could easily have been carried in one assault if the men had followed the officers. The delay contributed to defeat the attacks next made upon San Miguel el Grande, and the hacienda de la Zanja, by allowing reënforcements to come up.

Mina retired somewhat disheartened to Valle de Santiago, the centre of a strongly revolutionary population, there to seek the coöperation of Comandante Flores for a descent on Guanajuato, which promised, besides rich gains, to cripple the enemy severely, and even to compel the abandonment of the siege of Remedios. Torres for some reason failed to take this view, and insisted that the only way to relieve the fortress, as his main duty, was to attack the besiegers. Mina remonstrated that the relative strength, character, and position of the contending forces forbade such a movement; whereupon the other went so far as to forbid his subordinates from joining with their best troops in any enterprise beyond the one indicated. One result of this injudicious deterioration