At the end of March, 1895, Antonio Maceo, with sixteen comrades, sailed from Costa Rica and landed at Baracoa, on the eastern end of the island.  They were surprised by a Spanish cavalry, but kept up an intermittent fight for several hours, when Maceo managed to elude his enemies and escape.  After living in the woods for ten days, making his way westward, he met a party of rebels, was recognized and welcomed with great enthusiasm.  He took command of the insurgents in the neighborhood and began to get recruits rapidly.  He engaged in several sharp encounters with the Spanish and did such effective service that the moral effect was noticed immediately.  He and his brother Jose were made generals.

About the middle of April Maximo Gomez and Jose Marti landed from San Domingo at about the same point where the Maceos had landed.  For days they were obliged to secrete themselves in a cave on account of the presence of the enemy’s pickets, but they finally reached an insurgent camp, and Gomez entered upon his duties as commander-in-chief.  The insurgents now had an experienced leader at their head, re-enforcements poured in, and they soon had a force of six thousand men.

Arrival of Campos.

The government had issued new calls for troops, and in April no less than twenty-five thousand men were raised.  Martinez Campos came over from Spain, arriving at Santiago on April 16, and went at once to Havana, where he relieved Calleja as captain-general.  Campos was a veteran, and expected to crush the insurrection at once, but day by day his task grew more difficult.

Gomez and Maceo, instead of being driven hither and thither, led Campos a dance, and he was prevented from solidifying the two trochas he had formed.  Gomez never attempted pitched battles or sieges, but harassed the enemy in every way possible, cutting off their convoys, picking them off in detail, getting up night alarms, and in every way annoying them.  His hardened soldiers, especially the negroes, could stand hardships and still keep in good fighting condition, but with the Europeans, what between yellow fever and the constant alarms of war, it was a different story.  No European soldier could live under the hardships and exposures which seemed to put life into the negro soldiers.

No caste prejudices.

It must be understood that there is no caste feeling between the negro and the pure-blooded Cuban.  They march, eat and sleep side by side.  Moreover, the negroes make excellent soldiers, with finer physique than the Cubans themselves, and equal powers of endurance.

The Cuban is small in stature compared to the American soldier, but he is well set up, wiry, and apparently has unlimited staying powers.  He frequently lives on one meal a day, and that a poor one, but he shows no signs whatever of being ill-fed; in fact, he seems to thrive on it, and he has an uncomfortable habit of marching six hours in the morning on an empty stomach, which would be fatal to the ordinary Anglo-Saxon.