Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... IV A DEFEAT AND A VICTORY JIGUANI Nearly five months had passed since the victory of Guaimaro, and in this time the forces of Garcia had roamed at will through the provinces of Oriente and Camaguey. Large convoys escorted by formidable bodies of Spanish troops moved slowly along the main roads, carrying supplies to the isolated garrisons of the interior, and were harassed and fought from the time of starting until their return. Occasionally a column unhampered by transport would sally out on operations, and move ponderously for a week or so from town to town; but it was never for a moment out of sight of the Cubans, who fought it or not as seemed most expedient. Now and then a band of guerillas, well mounted and thoroughly familiar with the country, would dash by night out of one of the larger garrisons and raid through the country, cutting up such small bodies of insurgents as they might encounter, and making a specialty of hunting out our hospitals and murdering the helpless wounded found in them. These detestable wretches were more mobile than the insurgents themselves, their horses being better fed, and usually managed to return to their home stations. When they were run down, however, it was a fight to the death, quarter being neither asked nor given. On one occasion Major Pablo Menocal, a brother of the chief of staff, while scouting with eighty insurgent cavalry in the Holguin district, encountered a band of sixty guerillas on a raid. He formed line before being discovered and made a furious mounted charge. The guerillas fought desperately, but were driven back into a barb-wire fence and annihilated. Not one escaped, and there were no wounded when it was over. In this encounter both sides had gone back to the days of the Crusades, ..
