When the last desperate sortie was made by Maximilian with the hope of cutting his way out and escaping to the Pacific coast, via Morelia, Corona's division caught the full weight of the blow, and was savagely handled and cut to pieces; but the delay was fatal, though the sortie had become an almost insured success, for it enabled the Republicans to rally to the rescue just in time. Escobedo's victorious army came up, and, falling upon the Imperialist forces, rolled them back in utter rout within their intrenchments, and from that time forth, the fate of the Empire and of Maximilian was sealed.
Among the most daring, active, and determined of the officers in General Corona's command, was General Angel Martinez, a native of Sinaloa, and commander of a brigade noted for its rough style of fighting and defective outfit. This dashing officer, with the most inadequate means, accomplished important results and contributed much to the overthrow of the Imperial cause in the North-west. His enemies nicknamed him "El Machetero" from the machete or short sword—the favorite weapon of his followers—a weapon which he himself wielded with terrible effect on more than one occasion. When Corona was holding the French in Mazatlan, after the terrible defeats he gave them at the Presidio of Mazatlan and Palos Prietos, Martinez entered Sonora, and swept it like a whirlwind; nothing escaped him in the field, and the hurried evacuation of Guaymas by the French at his approach, alone saved a remnant of the force from utter extermination.
In one of the battles, near Hermosillo, the forces of the Imperialist butcher, General Lanberg, who was the perpetrator of the wholesale massacre of La Noria, were cut to pieces, and Lanberg, himself, lassoed and pulled
