While Maceo was thus baffling the Spanish in the far west of the island, Gomez and his lieutenants were more than holding their own in the other five provinces. Jose Maceo in April marched from Oriente all the way to the western side of Havana, where he was joined by Serafin Sanchez, Rodriguez, Lacret, Maso, Aguirre and others, until nearly 20,000 Cubans were gathered there. Gomez remained in Santa Clara, where the Spaniards had a precarious foothold at Cienfuegos, protected by their fleet. Colonel Gonzalez, commanding in the district of Remedios, routed the forces of General Oliver. Then, the Spanish power in the three great eastern provinces having been rendered negligible, a general movement westward was undertaken, following in the trail of the two Maceos. Gomez himself took supreme command, and Collazo, Calixto Garcia and others marched their forces to join him. Calixto Garcia, after only Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo, was the foremost chieftain of the patriots, and not unworthy to rank with them in a trinity of military prowess. He was now advanced in[{77}] years, having been born in 1839, at Holguin, Oriente. From childhood a fervent patriot, at the outbreak of the Ten Years' War he took the field under Donato Marmol. His native bent for military achievement assured him advancement, and at Santa Rita and Baire he was a Brigadier General under Gomez. In 1871 he besieged Guisa and Holguin, and then, when Gomez marched westward into Camaguey, thence to force passage of the trocha between Jucaro and Moron, Garcia was left in supreme command in Oriente. In that capacity he was active, triumphing at Santa Maria, Holguin, Chaparra, the siege and capture of Manzanillo, and at Ojo de Agua de los Melones. Then came the incident which for the time ended his military career and which gave him that scar in the centre of his forehead which was ever after so conspicuous a feature. At San Antonio de Baja he and only twenty of his men were surprised and surrounded by a large force of Spaniards. Seeing that escape was impossible, and having vowed never to fall alive into the hands of Spain, he put the muzzle of a pistol beneath his chin and fired. The bullet passed through the tongue, the roof of his mouth, behind his nose, and out at the centre of his forehead. But not thus was he to die. The Spaniards took him to a hospital at Santiago, where he recovered, and then sent him to prison in Spain; whence he returned to Cuba after the Treaty of Zanjon. He was a leader in the "Little War"; then, enjoying the respect and friendship of Martinez Campos, he went back to Spain and for a time was a bank clerk at Madrid. Thus he was engaged when the War of Independence began. Suspected and watched, he was not able to escape until a year later. But on March 24, 1896, he landed at Baracoa with an important expedition, and thereafter he was a raging and consuming flame of war.[{78}]

The westward march was marked with victory. On May 14 Colonel Segura's whole battalion was captured. On June 9 and 10 near Najasa General Jiminez Castellanos was soundly beaten and forced to retreat to Camaguey. Then, hoping to bar the Cubans from Santa Clara, the Spanish reconstructed the eastern trocha, from Jucaro to Moron, and sent forces inland from Santiago and other coast towns to create a back fire in Oriente. Calixto Garcia turned upon these latter, and routed them on the Cauto River, at Venta de Casanova, and near Bayamo, and captured great stores of supplies. At Santa Ana several stubbornly contested battles occurred between Garcia and General Linares, in which the latter was finally worsted. At Loma del Gato on July 5 the Cubans under Jose Maceo and Perequito Perez defeated the forces of General Albert and Colonel Vara del Rey, but at the heavy cost of Maceo's death. Meanwhile Juan B. Zayas, Lacret and others penetrated Havana Province at will, in guerrilla warfare; but Zayas was finally killed in an engagement near Gabriel.

During the rainy season there was comparatively little activity, but in the fall the advance westward began in earnest. Garcia captured Guaimaro, and Gomez pushed on to Camaguey, but left the place to be dealt with by Garcia and hastened on, with Rodriguez, Rabi, Bandera and Carrillo. He crossed the trocha with ease, penetrated Santa Clara, and was soon in Matanzas, where Aguirre joined them with 3,200 men. He put an end to sugar making throughout most of the province, and then encamped in the Cienaga de Zapata, leaving a number of active guerrilla bands to harass and menace Havana. In the latter province at the beginning of December Raoul Arango and Nicolas Valencia attacked the town of Guanabacoa, only five miles from Havana, and[{79}] seized great stores of supplies. Beyond the western trocha Ruiz Rivera succeeded Antonio Maceo in command, and carried on his work with much success. Thus the second year of the war drew to a close with the patriots despite some heavy losses decidedly in the ascendant, and the Spanish campaign of ruthless severity no more successful than that of moderation and conciliation had been.

One other incident of the year 1896 was highly significant. At the beginning of December the President of the United States, Mr. Cleveland, in his annual message to Congress, discussed the Cuban problem very fully and frankly. He practically reasserted the historic policy toward that island first enunciated by John Quincy Adams, as quoted in a preceding volume of this history. He reasserted the Monroe Doctrine. He made it clear that the United States had special interests in Cuba, which not only all other nations but also Spain herself must recognize and acknowledge. Concerning the war he said, most justly:

"The spectacle of the utter ruin of an adjoining country, by nature one of the most fertile and charming on the globe, would engage the serious attention of the government and people of the United States in any circumstances. In point of fact, they have a concern with it which is by no means of a wholly sentimental or philanthropic character. It lies so near us as to be hardly separated from our territory. Our actual pecuniary interest in it is second only to that of the people and government of Spain. It is reasonably estimated that at least from $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 of American capital are invested in plantations and in railroad, mining and other business enterprises on the island. The volume of trade between the United States and Cuba, which[{80}] in 1889 amounted to about $64,000,000, rose in 1893 to about $103,000,000, and in 1894, the year before the present insurrection broke out, amounted to nearly $96,000,000. Beside this large pecuniary stake in the fortunes of Cuba, the United States, finds itself inextricably involved in the present contest in other ways both vexatious and costly."

Then he added, in words the purport of which was unmistakable:

"When the inability of Spain to deal successfully with the insurrection has become manifest, and it is demonstrated that her sovereignty is extinct in Cuba for all purposes of its rightful existence, and when a hopeless struggle for its reestablishment has degenerated into a strife which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of human life and the utter destruction of the very subject-matter of the conflict, a situation will be presented in which our obligations to the sovereignty of Spain will be superseded by higher obligations, which we can hardly hesitate to recognize and discharge."

To those who knew Mr. Cleveland, and who appreciated the care with which he selected every word in all important addresses, this could have but one meaning. It meant that American intervention was inevitable. Note that he did not say "If the inability of Spain should ... a situation would ..." as though the thing were still problematic. No; but he said plumply "When the inability of Spain has become manifest ... a situation will be presented...." In his mind the thing was certain to come. It had already come, and only awaited disclosure and recognition. Remember, too, that of all men of his time Mr. Cleveland was one of the most opposed to "jingoism," and meddling with the affairs of other lands; while to any suggestion of conquest and[{81}] annexation of Cuba to the United States he would have offered the most resolute opposition of which he was capable. In view of those facts, that utterance in his message was of epochal import. It foreshadowed precisely what did occur less than a year and a half later. It was in effect a declaration of intervention and of war with Spain in behalf of Cuban independence, made more than a year before the steamer Maine entered Havana harbor.[{82}]

CHAPTER VI

We have said that the death of Antonio Maceo moved Cuban patriots to redouble their efforts to atone for the grievous loss which their cause had thus suffered. Unfortunately not all of them were capable of so doing, while those who did so were unable to make devotion and zeal take the place of consummate military genius. In consequence, despite the utmost efforts of Gomez and his colleagues matters went badly for the revolution through most of the following year. Gomez himself indeed felt that he had lost his right arm. He was at La Reforma, near Sancti Spiritus, at the beginning of 1897, and he summoned the other revolutionary leaders to meet him there, to concentrate their forces, and to plan a new campaign. They came promptly and eagerly, some of them unfortunately thus leaving without protection important strategic points and centers of revolutionist industry, which were pounced upon and captured by the Spanish. When the patriot forces were thus gathered it was expected that there would be immediately undertaken a general advance westward, into Matanzas and Havana; for which it was believed the Cuban army was strong enough, and which the Spanish were not believed to be able to resist.