About the first of July, Maceo, still in the province of Santiago, concentrated the forces in the Holguin district and moved against Bayamo, capturing one provision train after another that were en route to that place.  Campos took fifteen hundred men, with General Santocildes second in command, and went to the relief of Bayamo.  About the middle of July he was attacked several miles from Bayamo by Maceo with twenty-seven hundred rebels.  He and his entire staff narrowly escaped capture, and only the bravery of General Santocildes averted this catastrophe.  The brave general lost his life and the Spaniards were forced to fly, after having fought for five hours, surrounded on all sides by the rebels.  They finally made their escape to Bayamo, the rear guard covering their retreat with great difficulty.

Flor Crombet had fallen in battle several weeks before this fight and Marti had been killed in an insignificant fight at Dos Rios.  Gomez had passed into Camaguay to add fire to the insurrection and Maceo had been left in command in the province of Santiago.  To him was Campos indebted for his defeat.  He escaped capture as if by intuition.  A new snare had been spread for him by Maceo after the death of Santocildes, and he was already within its meshes, when, intuitively divining the situation, he came to an about face and fled to Bayamo by an unused road, covered by impassable thickets in the rear of Maceo’s victorious troops.

The Spaniards were rapidly re-enforced after the escape to Bayamo, and Maceo, with Quintin Bandero, began to fall back to his impregnable mountain retreat at Jarahuica.  This was in the heart of Santiago de Cuba, over a hundred miles east of Bayamo and twenty-five miles northeast of the port of Santiago.  His war-worn army needed rest, recruits, and supplies.  Once in his mountain fastness, he was perfectly secure, as no Spanish army would trust itself in the rocky range.  News of his movements had reached Santiago and a strenuous effort was being made to head him off at San Luis, a railroad town fifteen miles north-west of that city.  Nothing, however, escaped the observation of the Cuban general.  With wonderful prescience he anticipated the movements of the Spaniards.  His troopers were armed with machetes and the infantry with rifles and ammunition captured at Paralejo.  Bandera commanded this band of blacks.  The march had been terrific, and horses and men were nearly fagged.  With sparse supplies the pace had been kept up for hours.  The sun had gone down and the moon was flooding the fronds of the palms with pale, silvery light.  Maceo held a short conference with Quintin Bandera, and not long afterward the blacks wheeled in column and disappeared.