The History of Cuba, vol. 3

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

But the rainy season was approaching and soon caused a halt in hostilities, while both armies were strengthening their positions looking forward to the time when weather would permit a resumption of the warfare. If the Spanish were obtaining reinforcements, the Cubans also were, in spite of the Spanish blockade and the decrees of the Captain-General, as well as the activities of the United States officials, constantly receiving aid from the United States. This mainly took the form of small expeditions from the southern states. However, at the close of July there arrived a company of two hundred and seventy-five recruits from the states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, bringing with them large stores of food, clothing, arms and ammunitions. So it appeared that faith in the righteousness of the Cuban cause was not confined to what were known as the southern states.

These men were placed under the direct command of General Quesada, and thus reinforced he decided to make an effort to subdue and capture the besieged Las Tunas. He set out to go thither with twelve hundred men. All night long the fight raged on the outskirts of the town, and just as the morning was breaking the Cubans made a triumphal entry. By two o'clock the next afternoon the town was completely under their control. When news of this victory reached the Spanish headquarters, a large force was immediately dispatched to dislodge the Cubans, and spies reporting to General Quesada that the Spanish troops sent against him not only largely outnumbered his own, but also were bringing large quantities of heavy artillery with them, he decided that to hold the town would not be of sufficient importance—if indeed he could do so against such odds—to risk an engagement. He, therefore, again retired. He had been welcomed as a deliverer by the inhabitants of Las Tunas, for they had suffered gross indignities under Spanish occupation, and now many of them enlisted in the Cuban army, and accompanied General Quesada on his retreat.

It may have been that the attempted intervention of the United States government at Madrid led the Spanish government to believe that the time had again arrived to temporize; at any rate, several concessions were made in an attempt to pacify the insurgents, but without any perceptible effect.

Not every attempt to bring aid from the United States to Cuba was productive of results, and during the summer there had been a number of efforts which were abortive, or which failed of execution. But just as hope of a successful relief expedition was dying in the hearts of the Cubans, a party of six hundred men with a quantity of rifles and a large amount of ammunition arrived from that stronghold of Cuban sympathizers, New Orleans. Meanwhile General Jordan communicated a request for aid to his compatriots who composed the Cuban Junta in the City of New York. He reported that the Cuban army was composed of twenty six thousand eight hundred men, besides whom there were at least forty thousand freed slaves, who were armed merely with machetes. He requested that seventy five thousand stands of arms be in some manner dispatched to the Cubans, and expressed the opinion that if this could be accomplished, in ninety days the war would be determined in favor of the patriots.

Small bodies of Cubans were still carrying on guerrilla warfare wherever it seemed most effective, and the plantations belonging to Spanish sympathizers were suffering in consequence. The idea of this action was not wanton destruction. The Cubans argued that it was from such sources as the rich Spanish planters that Spain, by taxation, obtained revenues which were enabling her to continue the war, and thus their own country was being used to supply funds for her own destruction; and therefore when they destroyed Spanish holdings, they were not only wreaking vengeance on their tormentors, but they were also reducing the resources which made the prosecution of the war possible. To offset these actions, the Spanish commanders were countenancing the most scandalous conditions, and allowing most wholesale torture and butchery of such luckless patriots as fell into their hands, in which they could have had no motive except to terrorize the Cubans, and to enjoy that peculiar pleasure which they seemed to take in cruelty and murder. However, in the month of November alone, the patriots were able to burn the buildings on and destroy the productiveness of over a hundred and fifty sugar plantations, which the Spanish government had confiscated under the order which Dulce had promulgated. These were plantations which belonged to soldiers in the Cuban army, and which had been seized by the Spaniards in the absence of their owners, and the revenues of which had been flowing into the Spanish treasury.

This work of destruction had the approval of General Cespedes, for he felt that it was necessary to cut off every possible source of revenue for Spain from the island, and so, in December, he issued a proclamation calling on all loyal patriots to see that it was made impossible for Spain to collect revenue from sugar and tobacco plantations on the island, when by any action of patriots this could be avoided.

The revolutionists had been encouraged, not only by their friends in the United States, but also by the sympathetic expressions of former Spanish colonies in South America, who were now enjoying their own freedom. As early as May 15, 1869, the President of the Republic of Peru expressed to General Cespedes his good wishes, in a letter couched in the following terms:

"The President of Peru sympathizes deeply with the noble cause of which your Excellency constitutes himself the worthy champion, and he will do his utmost to mark the interest that island, so worthy of taking its place with the civilized nations of the world, inspires him with. The Peruvian Government recognizes as belligerents the party which is fighting for the independence of Cuba, and will strive its utmost to secure their recognition as such by other nations; and likewise that the war should be properly regulated in conformity with international usages and laws."

This action on the part of Peru was followed by recognition of the revolutionists on the part of other South American states of Spanish origin. Action was taken on this subject in Colombia, in June, 1870, when a bill was introduced into the House of Representatives proposing that all the Spanish-American republics form a combination for the active promotion of aid to Cuba, material and political, in her struggle for independence. This bill was reported out of Committee, with the following comments:

"1. The cause for which Cuban patriots fight is the same for which Colombia fought incessantly from 1810 to 1824.