nd led them to Guadalajara, where he
organized a government, appointed ministers, and styled himself
generalissimo. He despatched a commissioner to the United States, but this
personage soon found himself a prisoner. Arms were collected and the army
organized as rapidly as possible, but his forces were still in the rough
when, disregarding the advice of Allende and others, he resolved to attack
Calleja. He advanced on the 16th of January to the Puenta de Calderon,
where he found himself in face of a well-equipped and disciplined army of
ten thousand men, superior in everything but numbers to his undisciplined
levies. They fought bravely enough in the battle of the next day, but they
were no match for their opponents, and the contest ended in a complete
rout, the insurgents scattering in all directions.

Hidalgo hastened towards Zacatecas, meeting on his way Allende, Jiminez,
and other leaders who had escaped from the fatal field of Calderon. The
cause of liberty seemed at an end. Calleja was vigorously putting down the
revolution on all sides. As a last hope the chiefs hastened towards the
United States borders with such men and money as they had left, proposing
there to recruit and discipline another army. But before reaching the
frontier they were overtaken by their pursuers, being captured in a desert
region near the Rio Grande.

The captives were now taken under a strong escort to Chihuahua, where they
were tried and condemned to death. Allende, Aldama, and Jiminez were shot
on the 26th of June, and Hidalgo paid the penalty of his life on the 27th
of June, 1811. Thus, in the death of its chiefs, ended the first struggle
for independence in Mexico. The heads of the four chiefs were taken to
Guanajuato and nailed to the four corners of the stronghold which they had
taken by storm in that city. There they remained till the freedom of
Mexico was won, when they were given solemn burial beneath the altar of
the sovereigns in the cathedral of Mexico. The Alhondiga de Grenaditas,
the building to which their heads were attached, is now used as a prison,
but its walls still bear the spike which for ten years held Hidalgo's
head. Before it there stands a bronze statue of this earliest of the
Mexican patriot leaders.

Shall we add a few words descriptive of the later course of the struggle
for independence? The death of Hidalgo left many patriots still alive, and
one of these, Moreles the muleteer, kept up the war with varying