The result of this onslaught was dreadful. Wherever the rebellious army passed, Spaniards and uncomplying creoles they were indiscriminately slaughtered, and though many of the latter were originally combined with the conspirators and eagerly longed for the emancipation of their country, they were dismayed by the atrocities of the wild insurgents. As the rebel chief, armed with the sword and cross, pressed onward, immense numbers of Indians flocked to his banner, so that when he left Zelaya, a fierce and undisciplined mob of twenty thousand hailed him as undisputed commander. At the head of this predatory band he descended upon the noble city of Guanajuanto, in the heart of the wealthiest mining district of Mexico. The Spaniards and some of the creoles resolved upon a stout resistance, shut themselves up in the city and refused the humane terms offered by Hidalgo upon condition of surrender. This rash rejection led to an immediate attack and victory. When the city fell, it was too late for the insurgent priest to stay the savage fury of his troops. The Spaniards and their adherents were promiscuously slaughtered by the troops, and, for three days the sacking of the city continued, until wearied with conquest, the rebels, at length, stopped the plunder of the town. Immense treasures, hoarded in this place for many years, were the fruits of this atrocious victory which terrified the Mexican authorities and convinced them that the volcanic nature of the people had been fully roused, and that safety existed alone in uncompromising resistance.
The original rebellion was thus thrown from the hands of the creoles into those of the Indians. A war of races was about to break out; and although there were not among the insurgents more than a thousand muskets, yet the mere numerical force of such an infuriate crowd, was sufficient to dismay the staunchest. The viceroy Venegas, and the church, therefore, speedily combined to hurl their weapons against the rebels. Whilst the former issued proclamations or decrees, and despatched troops under the command of Truxillo to check Hidalgo who was advancing on the capital, the latter declared all the rebels to be heretics, and excommunicated them in a body. Venegas ordered all the higher clergy "to represent from the pulpit, and circulate the idea privately, that the great object of the revolution was to destroy and subvert the holy Catholic religion, while he directed the subaltern ministers to sow discord in families by the confessional." [56] But the arms of the Spanish chiefs and the anathemas of the Roman church, were unequal to the task of resistance. Hidalgo was attacked by Truxillo at Las Cruces, about eight leagues from the capital, where the Indian army overwhelmed the Spanish general and drove him back to Mexico, with the loss of his artillery. In this action we find it difficult to apportion the ferocity, with justice, between the combatants, for Truxillo boasted in his despatch that he had defended the defile with the "obstinacy of Leonidas," and had even "fired upon the bearers of a flag of truce which Hidalgo sent him." [57]
The insurgents followed up their success at Las Cruces by pursuing the foe until they arrived at the hacienda of Quaximalpa, within fifteen miles of the city of Mexico. But here a fatal distrust of his powers seems first to have seized the warrior priest. Venegas, it is said, contrived to introduce secret emmissaries into his camp, who impressed Hidalgo and his officers with the belief that the capital was abundantly prepared for defence, and that an assault upon the disciplined troops of Spain, by a disordered multitude without fire arms, would only terminate in the rout and destruction of all his forces. In fact, he seems to have been panic stricken, and to have felt unable to control the revolutionary tempest he had raised. Accordingly, in an evil moment for his cause, he commenced a retreat, after having remained several days in sight of the beautiful city of Mexico, upon which he might easily have swept down from the mountain like an eagle to his prey.
It is related by the historians of these wars, that in spite of all Venegas's boasted valor and assurance, he was not a little dismayed by the approach of Hidalgo. The people shared his alarm, and would probably have yielded at once to the insurgents, whose imposing forces were crowding into the valley. But in this strait the viceroy had recourse to the well known superstitions of the people, in order to allay their fears. He caused the celebrated image of the Virgin of Remedios to be brought from the mountain village, where it was generally kept in a chapel, to the cathedral, with great pomp and ceremony. Thither he proceeded, in full uniform, to pay his respects to the figure, and after imploring the Virgin to take the government into her own hands, he terminated his appeal by laying his baton of command at her feet. [58]
It is now that we first encounter in Mexican history the name of Don Felix Maria Calleja,—a name that is coupled with all that is shameless, bloody, and atrocious, in modern warfare. Calleja was placed at the head of a well appointed creole army of ten thousand men and a train of artillery, and with these disciplined forces, which he had been for some time concentrating, he was ordered to pursue Hidalgo. [59] The armies met at Aculco, and the Indians, in their first encounter with a body of regulars, exhibited an enthusiastic bravery that nearly defies belief. They were almost as completely ignorant of the use or power of fire arms as their Aztec ancestors three hundred years before. They threw themselves upon the serried ranks of infantry with clubs and staves. Rushing up to the mouths of the cannon they drove their sombreros or hats of straw, into the muzzles. Order, command, or discipline, were entirely unknown to them. Their effort was simply to overwhelm by superiority of numbers. But the cool phalanx of creoles stood firm, until the Indian disorder became so great, and their strength so exhausted by repeated yet fruitless efforts, that the regulars commenced the work of slaughter with impunity. Calleja boasts that Hidalgo lost "ten thousand men, of whom five thousand were put to the sword." It seems, however, that he was unable to capture or disband the remaining insurgents; for Hidalgo retreated to Guanajuato, and then fell back on Guadalaxara, leaving in the former city a guard under his friend Allende.
Calleja next attacked the rebel forces at the hacienda of Marfil, and having defeated Allende, who defended himself bravely, rushed onward towards the city of Guanajuato. This place he entered as conqueror. "The sacrifice of the prisoners of Marfil," says Robinson, "was not sufficient to satiate his vindictive spirit." He glutted his vengeance on the defenceless population of Guanajuato. Men, women and children, were driven by his orders, into the great square; and fourteen thousand of these wretches, it is alleged, were butchered in a most barbarous manner. Their throats were cut. The principal fountain of the city literally overflowed with blood. But, far from concealing these savage acts, Calleja, in his account of the conflict, exults in the honor of communicating the intelligence that he had purged the city of its rebellious population. The only apology offered for the sacrifice was that it would have wasted too much powder to have shot them, and therefore, on the principle of economy he cut their throats. Thus was this unfortunate city, in a single campaign, made the victim of both loyalists and insurgents.
Hidalgo and his division were soon joined by Allende, and although they suffered all the disasters of a bad retreat as well as of Spanish victories, he still numbered about eighty thousand under his banners. He awaited Calleja at Guadalaxara, which he had surrounded with fortifications and armed with cannon, dragged by the Indians, over mountain districts from the port of San Blas, on the Pacific; but it is painful to record the fact, that in this city Hidalgo was guilty of great cruelties to all the Europeans. Ward relates that between seven and eight hundred victims fell beneath the assassin's blade. A letter, produced on Hidalgo's trial, written to one of his lieutenants, charges the officer to seize as many Spaniards as he possibly can, and, moreover, directs him, if he has any reason to suspect his prisoners of entertaining seditious or restless ideas, to bury them at once in oblivion by putting such persons to death in some secret and solitary place, where their fate may remain forever unknown! As the cruelty of Old Spain to the Mexicans had well nigh driven them to despair, such savage assassinations, in turn, drove the Spaniards to revenge, or, at least furnished them with an excuse for their horrible atrocities.
Calleja, intent on the pursuit of his Indian prey, was not long in following Hidalgo. The insurgent chief endeavored to excite the ardor of his troops, while he preserved some show of discipline in their ranks; and, thus prepared, he gave battle to the Spaniards, at the bridge of Calderon, on the 17th of January, 1811. At first Hidalgo, was successful, but the rebels were no match for the royal troops kept in reserve by Calleja. With these he made a fierce charge upon the Indians, and sweeping through their broken masses he "pursued and massacred them by thousands."
Calleja was not a person either to conciliate or to pause in victory. He believed that rebellion could only be rooted out by utter destruction of the insurgents and their seed. Accordingly orders were issued to "exterminate the inhabitants of every town or village that showed symptoms of adherence to the rebels," whilst, from the pulpit, new denunciations were fulminated against all who opposed the royal authority. The insurgent chiefs fled, and reached Saltillo with about four thousand men. There it was resolved to leave Rayon in command, while Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama and Absolo endeavored to reach the United States with an escort for the purpose of purchasing munitions of war with the treasure they had saved from the sacking of Guanajuato. But these fierce and vindictive soldiers were destined to end their lives by treachery. Hidalgo's associate rebel, Ignacio Elizondo, hoping to make his peace with the government by betraying so rich a prize, delivered them up to the authorities on the 21st of March, 1811, at Acatila de Bajan. Hidalgo was taken to Chihuahua, and, after being degraded from holy orders, was shot on the 27th of July, whilst Calleja was rewarded for his victories with the title of Conde de Calderon, won by his brilliant charge at the bridge near Guanajuato.
Such is an outline of the warfare between the Sylla and Marius of this continent, and of some of the most prominent events in the origin of that revolution which finally resulted in the Mexican independence.