After a boyhood spent in the best schools of Santiago de Cuba, Antonio's seventeenth year found him engaged in business for his father. The preparations for the war were then secretly going on, and young Maceo, being thought to possess a discretion beyond his years, was initiated into the movement. He labored hard for the cause then, and when the time came for action he promptly took the field, at eighteen years of age, with a few men whom he had organized and armed.
Maceo was really idolized by his men. For one thing, his magnificent personal appearance and the halo of many glorious exploits had great effect; but the real reason for his popularity was the care he took of his men. No soldier was too poorly or too thinly clad to come right in and talk to the General at any time. Maceo talked familiarly with his stalwart men, listened patiently to all complaints, great and small, and settled them in a quick, decisive manner. Particularly was he an object of affection to his men because he was always the first rider in a machete charge. He was always the closest to the enemy in a mountain fight, and was never to be found in a pitched battle anywhere else but in the first trench when there was any firing going on.
Dispatches were received in this country on Saturday, January 16, 1897, confirming the report of the death of Gen. Antonio Maceo, the valiant Cuban leader, who, with the rest of his staff, was reported to have been brutally murdered through Spanish treachery. Having been invited by the Spaniards to a conference, with a view of bringing the terrific struggle for Cuban liberty to an end, he started for the place of meeting. When nearly there he found himself surrounded by Spanish forces, and received the command to surrender. Instantly realizing that he had been drawn into a trap, he and his followers made a terrible struggle for their freedom, but were outnumbered. As they were fighting, Maceo received his death wound, and shed his life's blood in the defense of his country, which he loved too well to desert by surrender. Thus died brave Antonio Maceo, one of the greatest generals of African extraction that ever lived.
Jose Antonio Maceo was born in the eastern province of Santiago, near the city of Santiago de Cuba, in 1850, being the oldest of eleven brothers. When yet a young man he fought for "Cuba Libre" in the late ten years' war, seeking to throw off the yoke of Spanish tyranny. His service in that war, as well as in the present struggle, showed him to be a born fighter, and earned for him the titles of Second General in Chief of the Forces of Liberty and General in Chief of the Army of Invasion. He had full charge of the civil and military jurisdictions of the western and most important portion of the island of Cuba, the place where the present struggle will either be won or lost to the brave Cubans.
As long as Maceo lived there was no prospect of the blacks and whites of Cuba participating in a race war. He loved his country too well to allow it, and could have easily prevented such a clash, as he had the implicit confidence and respect of the Negroes. He was very reticent in speaking of his wounds, of which he bore twenty-three. With one exception, these wounds were received in the ten years' war.
In the death of Gen. Maceo Cuba loses a man who was without fear, a man of rare intellect, an honest man, and a genuine patriot, whose death will doubtless be avenged by his faithful followers. By Maceo's death Cuba loses one of the most valiant defenders she ever had. After his participation in the ten years' war and his exile to Jamaica, at its unsuccessful termination, his subsequent career has been told in the following interesting sketch:
"Early in 1879 a brown-skinned, weather-beaten man arrived in New York on one of the Jamaica steamers. For a month or more he lived alone, without other companionship than that of books. It was Maceo, and the fire of liberty, still smoldering in his breast, was only seeking a favorable opportunity to burst into flame. In a few months he made his way to West Point, where he obtained employment as a hostler. Nobody in the academy dreamed for a moment that the broad-shouldered, dark-browed man who handled the horses so easily had ever smelled the smoke of battle or heard the song of rifle bullets. Day after day on the parade grounds the taciturn man watched the evolutions of the cadets, listened to the commands of the officers, studied the discipline of the place, pored over volumes of military tactics that he had managed to borrow, and added to his natural genius the knowledge of other great generals. Then the dark-skinned hostler, who was regarded as book mad, gave up his position and returned to New York. From New York he went to Costa Rica, taking a hundred or more weighty volumes with him. Some wealthy Cubans had settled in Costa Rica during the war, and they now offered Maceo a tract of land on which to colonize his brave followers. Here for ten years the exiled Cuban worked and studied and dreamed and instructed his fellow-veterans in the modern theories of war. At times he would lecture them; at other times he would give them practical lessons in drilling and in cavalry evolutions. With each day, each week, month, and year his dream of the freedom of Cuba was brighter than before. Never for a moment did he seem to forget the points of his purpose.
"In 1888, ten years after the close of the war, he began to scheme for another uprising in Cuba. He took the former officers into his confidence, and the little band of revolutionists spent almost a year in making plans for the overthrow of Spain. Finally Maceo sailed for Jamaica, and from Jamaica to Santiago de Cuba, disguised as a laborer. Not for a moment, however, during the entire ten years that had elapsed since the war had the Spanish Government lost sight of Maceo. The Spaniards knew him too well. Consequently when he disappeared from Costa Rica there was a hue and cry. 'Maceo has gone,' was telegraphed to Madrid; 'Look out for Maceo,' was the word sent to Havana. Search was made throughout the island. Finally the government got word of him around Santiago. Under torture, a Cuban confessed that he had seen Maceo in El Christo, disguised as a muleteer. In the meantime Maceo had become aware that his whereabouts had been discovered. His schemes were consequently frustrated. A fisherman who had fought under him during the long war sailed with Maceo for Kingston one dark night in his fishing boat. For many weeks thereafter the Spaniards searched in vain for the Cuban leader.
"Maceo returned to Costa Rica disappointed, but not discouraged. He saw plainly that the revolutionary ball must be set rolling by other hands than his. He entered into correspondence with prominent Cuban sympathizers in American cities, and with Gen. Gomez in San Domingo. This was kept up until local juntas were formed in almost every prominent city in the United States. Then Maceo and his little band of patriots in Costa Rica had nothing to do but possess their souls in patience and wait for events. The years between 1890 and 1895 were passed in hard work and in studying the possibilities of Cuba from a military standpoint. One day in February, 1895, word came that the Cubans had risen. Blood had been shed, and Julio Sanguilly had been arrested and imprisoned. At last, after many years, here was an opportunity to strike once more for Cuba. Freedom, the dream of a lifetime, would come later on. On the following day an emissary of the Spanish Government asked Maceo if he intended to join the movement. 'Join it?' he replied, 'I shall join nothing.' He did not think it necessary to say that he had joined it years ago. This is why the papers of the next morning all over the world published a statement that Maceo was not identified with the revolutionary movement in Cuba.
"A week later Maceo, his brother Jose, Flor Crombet, Cabreco, and sixteen other veterans sailed from Costa Rica for San Domingo. From this point, a week or so later, they slipped away for Cuba. They landed on the morning of March 30 at a point near Baracoa, where many times in years gone by Maceo had seen the flash of machete and bayonet. True to the traditions of the place, hardly had he touched his foot on Cuban soil before Spanish rifles were cracking and bullets were singing all about him. The force of Spaniards numbered about fifty. Maceo had with him only nineteen men in addition to his brother Jose, Crombet, and Cabreco. There was a running fight along the road in the direction of an old log house, where the Cubans finally took refuge. In this skirmish Crombet was killed. In the log house, surrounded by Spaniards, the Cubans fought for days. In the meantime word had been sent out that Antonio Maceo had been captured immediately upon landing on the island, and that Flor Crombet had been killed. This was Maceo's first death during the present war. On the night of the third day Maceo called the men together and told them that their only hope was in making a rush for the woods. The door had hardly been opened before the Spaniards discovered the movement. Then ensued a fierce running fight, in which several of the Cubans were killed, and Maceo received a bullet through his hat. Separating from the rest of his companions, Maceo wandered through the pathless forest for two weeks alone, living on plantains, guavas, and other fruits. One day he stumbled upon the band of insurgents led by Rabi. He was taken to the hut occupied by the leader.