| First Division | Army of Camaguey | |
| Major General | Ignacio Agramonte | |
| Commanding | 1st Brigade | Colonel Miguel Bosse |
| " | 2d Brigade | General Francisco Castillo |
| " | 3d Brigade | Colonel Cornelio Porro |
| " | 4th Brigade | Colonel Lope Recio |
| " | 5th Brigade | Colonel Manuel Valdes Urra |
| " | 6th Brigade | Colonel Manuel Agramonte |
| " | 1st Battalion | Colonel Pedro Recio |
| " | 2d Battalion | Colonel Jose Lino Cica |
| " | 3d Battalion | Colonel Rafael Bobadilla |
| Second Division | Army of Oriente | |
| Major General | Francisco Aguilera | |
| Commanding | 1st Brigade | General Donate Marmol |
| " | 2d Brigade | General Luis Marcano |
| " | 3d Brigade | General Julio Peralta |
| Third Division | Army of Las Villas | |
| Commanding | 1st Brigade | General C. Acosta |
| " | 2d Brigade | General Salome Hernandez |
| " | 3d Brigade | General Adolfo Cabada |
A law was enacted providing that every citizen of the Republic, between the ages of 18 and 50 years, must under compulsion take up arms for the cause of liberty.
BERNABE DE VARONA
Bernabe de Varona, a brilliant writer and devoted patriot, was born at Camaguey in 1845, a member of a distinguished family. He entered the Ten Years War with much zeal and displayed exceptional military skill. He went on various patriotic missions to New York, to France and to Mexico, and was instrumental in securing much aid for the patriot cause. His last expedition was on the ill-fated Virginius, on which he was captured and shot to death at Santiago de Cuba on November 4, 1873.
On August 7, the powers of the various officers of the Government, including the Secretaries of State, were described and fixed.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the officers of the new Republic had high aspirations for an orderly government, and for the just administration of wise laws for the benefit of the people. Unfortunately, in a large measure, the Republic of Cuba established at that time was a government only in name, and was not destined to take the reins in administering the affairs of the Island, except in a more or less theoretical way.
CHAPTER XI
A REVOLUTION usually involves fighting as well as the organization of a government. In the case of Cuba, this was especially inevitable. It was realized by the patriots in advance that the redemption of Cuba from the tyranny of Spain could only be accomplished by force of arms, and consequently plans to that effect had been carefully perfected in advance. It was highly creditable to the Cubans that they so promptly organized a dignified and worthy government, and adopted a constitution favorably comparable with that of any other republic in the world. It was no less creditable to their judgment and their earnestness that they had already prepared for extensive military operations, and that they at once entered upon these in a vigorous and systematic manner. Plans for the uprising had indeed been matured before the breaking out of the revolution in Spain, but the latter event undoubtedly hastened the execution of their designs.
At the outset, before complete organization was effected, the insurgents at Bayamo were under the leadership of Francisco V. Aguilera, Manuel A. Aguilera and Francisco M. Osorio; at Manzanillo the leader was Carlos Manuel Cespedes; at Holguin, Belisario Alvarez was in command; at Las Tunas, Vincente Garcia; at Jiguani, Donato Marmol; and at Santiago, Manuel Fernandez.
When Cespedes issued his proclamation on October 10, the insurgents had only 147 men in their ranks, armed with forty-five fowling pieces, four rifles, and a few pistols and machetes—not enough arms to provide one weapon apiece. But volunteers began to flock to their standards and in two days the army had increased to over twenty-six times its original strength, and numbered upwards of four thousand men, while at the end of the month it had more than doubled, and had grown to nine thousand seven hundred. By November 8, the revolutionary army contained twelve thousand men, and at the end of 1868, it had grown to twenty-six thousand.