Was there a major Mexican military disaster in the Navajo Wars?

Thanks to comments by Andrew and justCal I have been directed to McNitt's book on the Internet Archive, and have copied that section here for future use:

Navajo Wars: Military Campaigns, Slave Raids, and Reprisals Frank McNItt (1972)

https://archive.org/details/navajowars0000unse/page/449/mode/1up

1835.

Page 73.

The raid on Jemez was followed by another expedition led into Navajo country by Blas de Hinojos. A force of about one thousand men was raised, most of them citizen volunteers but including as well a sizeable force of Pueblo warriors, among them a number of Jemez warriors and their war captain, Salvador. It was a heterogeneous army made up of almost every male citizen able to mount a horse and willing to fight. Captain Hinojos left Santa Fe on February 8, 1835 at the head of the Main column. Of three divisions taking the field, a second was led by Don Juan Antonio Cabeza de Baca, a wealthy rancher and Acalde of the town of Pena Blanca. If Vizcarra's route of 1823 was followed, and this was now a familiar military route to Casafuerte, Hinojos apparently was delayed, for it took twenty days---about twice the normal time---for his division to reach the foot of Washington Pass.

Page 74:

There approach was at a season when gusty winds carrying stinging clouds of sand scour the valley. Such forces of nature usually produce gloom in the most optimistic men. The troops marching with Hinojos, on the contrary, were a laughing, confident, and almost totally undisciplined band who advanced on the steep rocky face of the summit unaware of danger. Near the point where the pass narrows and bends through dark gray rocks they were ambushed. How many fell in the first few minutes is not known, but by Navajo accounts the Mexicans never before had suffered as many casualties. Taken unprepared and completely by surprise, they were felled like deer trapped in a box canyon. Blas de Hinojos and Cabeza de Baca were left with the many dead among the trees on the mountainside.

In testimony taken on his return to Santa Fe five weeks after the ill-starred departure, Juan Esquivel, one of the soldiers who survived, said nothing about the army's casualties. Of the Navajo's losses, he said thirty-five warriors were killed. Not in this engagement, but elsewhere during the campaign, Esquivel reported four Navajos were captured, and 6,604 sheep, 108 cattle, and 14 horses were driven off.

Among the Navajos the battle in the mountains became a legend handed down from one generation to the next for more than seventy-five years. Josiah Gregg, after hearing a reasonably fresh version, wrote:

[To be continued when I have more time.]

The valiant corps, utterly unconscious of the reception that awaited them, soon came jogging along in scattered groups, indulging in every kind of boisterous mirth; when the war whoop, followed by several shots, threw them all into a state of speechless consternation. Some tumbled off their horses in fright; some fired their muskets randomly, a terrible panic had seized everybody....

Twenty-one years afterward Navajo Agent Henry L. Dodge remarked that during his recent visits to different parts of their country the Navajos took "great pleasure in pointing out to me one of their mountain passes in which they say they put to rout one thousands Mexicans and Pueblos and killed Captain Inohos & the father of Don Thomas Baca teh rich man of Penablanco and forced the Capt of the Pueblos of Jemez to jump off a precipice and kill himself" 14

[to be continued]

Page 75

Despite their own severe losses during the campaign, Navajos regarded the engagement at the pass as a victory...

Note on page 73:

13, December 31, 1834. Military Papers, Service Record of Blas de Hinojos, MA, NMSRCA, trans. Brugge.

NEW MEXICO STATE RECORDS CENTER AND ARCHIVES,SANTA FE

Mexican Archival Materials, 1821-1846. Selected Civil and Military Documents. Translations by David M. Brugge, Jenkins and Johnson, and Marc Simmons.

Note on pages 74-75.

14. June 13, 1856: Dodge to Gov. David Meriwether, National Archives, (hereafter, NA), New Mexico Superintendency of Indian Affairs (hereafter, NMS), microcopy T21, role 2; Military Papers, Santa Fe Presidial Company, Enlistment Papers, 1821-1845,Mexican Archives; Gregg, 1954, p. 200; and Brugge, Navajo Times, April 28, 1966. Still another version of this episode was told to me by Mrs. Richard Wetherill, who heard the story from Navajos before 1910, while she was living in Chaco Canyon. By this account also, the engagement was a decisive Navajo victory.

Gregg, Josiah Commerce of the Prairies, Edited by Mex L. Moorhead from texts of the first and second editions (1844-45). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954.

Navajo Times April 28, 1966--"The Battle of Washington Pass-1835"---

The accounts are vague about how many were in the expedition and how many of them were killed in the ambush.

The enumeration of vast amounts of captured livestock is interesting. Were all those thousands of sheep delivered to Santa Fe by surviving members of he expedition or were they recaptured by the Navajos?

Did survivors of the expedition capture the livestock on the way back to Santa Fe, or did Hinojos capture them on his way to Navajo lands, perh0rps explaining why it took so long for Hinojos to reach the pass.. If the livestock was captured before the ambush, Hinojos might have detached many of his men to drive them back to Santa Fe, reducing his numbers. Or if they were captured before the ambush, and they were taken along by the expedition, a number of men would have to herd, distracting them from their military tasks, and the herd might have stampeded down the pass, trampling and sweeping along many horses and men.

If there were between 800 and 1,2000 men with Hinojos in the ambush, and if at least 50 percent were killed, that would be at least 400 to at least 600 killed. But McNitt's accounts don't make it seem certain that at least half of 0HhInojos's men were killed in the ambush.

If 35 Navajo warriors were killed in the ambush someone could assume a ratio of Mexicans to Navajos killed. With a ratio of 5 to one, 175 Mexicans would have been killed. With a ratio of ten to one, 350 Mexicans would have been killed. With a ratio of fifteen to one, 525 Mexicans would have been killed. With a ratio of twenty to one, 700 Mexicans would have been killed. And so on.