as the ground allowed his doing so, joined his forces with those of Flon. He then caused his ten pieces of artillery to be collected on one point, and directed against the main battery of the insurgents. While these were playing vigorously upon the enemy at half musket shot, a general charge along the royalist line was ordered.
And now occurred an accident which overruled the power of battle, and held back the cause of independence, it may be, for eleven tedious and bloody years. A bomb from the well directed artillery of the royalists struck an ammunition wagon of the enemy, and a terrific explosion occurred, scattering the dead and dying in all directions. But this was not all. The ground at that season of the year was covered with a thick matting of dry grass, and this taking fire a fearful conflagration ensued. The wind blew full in the face of the revolutionists, and the fire spreading with awful rapidity, they were soon enveloped in dense clouds of smoke and roaring flames. Before the fiery blast they could not stand. Some fell asphyxiated; others were horribly burned. Flight was inevitable.[1] The disorder caused by this catastrophe and the firm advance of the royalists, who were now encouraged by the presence and intrepid bearing of Calleja, struck panic
- ↑ Calleja makes no mention of this conflagration so favorable to his move ments; and Alaman —Hist. Mej., ii. 132-3—generally partial to the royalists, receives the statement with such expressions of doubt as to leave the impression on the reader's mind that he did not wish to believe in it. He does not even accept the testimony of Colonel Villamil, who was sent with two field-pieces to the assistance of Flon, and who says: 'Se empesó el fuego con los dos cañones que llevaba hasta que este cesó por haberse incendiado el campo.' Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., ii. 361. But this royalist testimony is strongly corroborative of statements more particularized. In the Bosquejo de la Batalla de Calderon, I find this account: 'Una granada del calibre de á 4 tirada contra la orden de que no se hiciese fuego, pego en su carro de municiones de los enemigos, lo inflamo y se observo una grande explosion.' And further on: 'Se encontró con muchos cadaveres asi por el fuego de los ataques de Flon como por el de la esplosion del carro y de los cajones de polbora que abia disperses en varios puntos.' Id., ii. 342. Verdia, in Id., iv. 180-1, attributes in a great measure the disaster of the day on the side of the independents to the explosion of some ammunition wagons, caused by a grenade discharged by the royalists and the spread of fire thereby through the camp. Bustamante and Negrete take the view given in the text. Mora attributes the fire in the camp to the simultaneous discharge of the 67 guns by order of Allende. Max. y sus Rev., iv. 135.
