On the first day of September, news reached Major Noguera that the enemy were convoying a stock of supplies in the neighborhood where he was stationed. He divided his men and concealed them at different points along the road over which the Spaniards must pass. Six Volunteers and one regular soldier were killed, and the enemy abandoned to the Cubans a number of carts, filled with food stuffs, carbines, machetes, and other supplies.
One of the most gallant figures in the patriot ranks in the Ten Years' War and the War of Independence was that of Calixto Garcia e Iñiguez. Born at Bayamo on August 4, 1839, he was in the prime of young manhood when he took the field under General Marmol in 1868. Soon as a brigadier general he was the right-hand man of Maximo Gomez, and was made by him commander in chief in Oriente when Gomez himself marched westward. After six years of almost incessant and victorious fighting, he was surprised and surrounded at San Antonio de Baja, when, rather than be captured, he placed the muzzle of a pistol in his mouth and fired. The bullet pierced the roof of his mouth and came out at the centre of his forehead. The Spaniards then took him to a military hospital and, respecting his valor, nursed him back to health. After the Treaty of Zanjon he was released, whereupon he took the lead in the Little War. He was in Spain in 1895 and could not get into the War of Independence until March, 1896, but thereafter he was one of its chief warriors. After the close of the war he was sent to Washington on a diplomatic mission, and died there on December 11, 1898.
September 18 was to be a memorable day in the year's fighting, for on that date General Calixto Garcia with three regiments advanced against Jiguani, where a large force of Spaniards were garrisoned. The latter defended the town for two hours, but in the end the Cubans were victorious, and gained control of the major portion of the town and its fortifications. Many houses were burned, and two hundred Spaniards lay dead in the streets. General Garcia then retreated, carrying with him a large quantity of captured supplies, since he did not have a large enough force to complete the occupation of Jiguani. He was pursued by the Spaniards who had been reinforced, but the patriots made good their escape with only slight losses.
Throughout the entire months of August and September the eastern part of the island was in a constant state of uproar and confusion. Attack and counter-attack followed in succession, and yet neither side was any nearer a significant victory or a decision.
On October 23, the Spaniards gained a victory over the Cubans at El Toro, and in November the insurgents turned the tables by defeating the Spanish forces under Captain Ferral y Mongs. So the war continued, the whole country witnessing the destruction of plantations, the burning of buildings, the pillaging of villages, and loss of life as well as of property. In the end it was the land of Cuba that suffered, for from a once prosperous country it bade fair to be transformed into waste lands.
Meanwhile the Cuban forces were slowly degenerating. The Spaniards were well fed, well clothed and well equipped, while the Cuban forces were poorly armed, often hungry, and in torn and ragged garments. The resources of Spain reinforced her army, but the patriots had to rely on chance help that came to them from their American sympathizers. Nothing in their existence was certain, and as the war was prolonged without their gaining a victory which seemed to bring the end nearer, the weaker spirits began to despair and there was dissension and an undercurrent of revolt among the common soldiers. In vain the leaders tried to put heart into their forces, and desertions became alarmingly common. The reductions in numbers compelled the Cuban leaders more and more to resort to guerrilla warfare. This involved deplorable destruction of property, valuable holdings of both loyalists and patriots were rendered valueless, and naturally the morale of both armies suffered from a spirit of lawlessness. By the end of 1871, two thirds of the farms and coffee and sugar plantations in the district of Trinidad were destroyed or abandoned, and the entire central portion of the island had suffered grievously.
Valmaseda on December 27, 1871, issued a proclamation to the effect that after the first of the year every prisoner would be shot, and every patriot who delivered himself up would suffer life imprisonment. This applied to both negroes and white men; while all white women captured would be banished, and all negro women would be returned to their owners, and condemned to wear chains for a period of four years. However, prior to that date, only if four days distant, the leaders or any of the soldiers would lay down their arms and announce their allegiance to Spain, they would be received with kindness and clemency. This might have had more effect than it did but for the fact that the Cubans were distrustful of promises of clemency, and feared that if they escaped the vengeance of the government, they would later suffer at the hands of the Volunteers.
CHAPTER XV
AT the beginning of 1872 the storm center of the insurrection moved eastward to Puerto Principe, Santiago and Guantanamo. Engagements in the vicinity of these places had been frequent, and now they were almost daily consisting chiefly of little skirmishes between small forces of men.