MACEO DEAD BY TREACHERY.
A Great Leader in a Great Cause--A Modern Judas--The Worthy Son
of a Noble Sire--The Farewell Letter--An Estimate of Maceo's
Character--Rejoicing Among Spanish Supporters--Their Mistaken
Belief--Patriotic Ardor of the Insurgents.
In the death of Antonio Maceo the Cuban cause lost one of its
strongest defenders. Besides being a man of acute intellect, and a
general of great military skill, he had the rare gift of personal
magnetism, and no one ever followed his leadership who did not
feel for him the devotion which often gives courage to cowards and
makes heroes in the time of need.
That his death was due to treachery there is little doubt. Doctor
Zertucha, his physician and trusted friend, is accused of having
betrayed him to the Spaniards. An Insurgent officer, who was with
the general when he received his death wound, says that they heard
gun shots in the vicinity of Punta Brava. Zertucha galloped into
the brush a short distance and returned, calling to them to follow
him. Maceo at once put spurs to his horse, and, followed by his
aides, rode swiftly after the physician, who plunged into the
thick growth on the side of the road. They had ridden only a short
distance, when Zertucha suddenly bent low in his saddle and
swerved sharply to one side, galloping away like mad. Almost at
the same moment a volley was fired by a party of Spanish soldiers
hidden in the dense underbrush, and Maceo and four of his aides
dropped out of their saddles mortally wounded.
The single survivor, the one who tells this story, managed to make
his way back to his own men, and brought them up to the scene of
the tragedy, but the bodies had been removed, and when they were
finally discovered, they had been mutilated in a most shocking
manner. It was then learned that one of the victims was Francisco
Gomez, a son of the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban army, who was
one of Maceo's aides. It seems that his wound was not necessarily
a fatal one, but he refused to leave his dying commander, and
rather than to fall alive in the hands of his foes, he committed
suicide. This letter was found in his hand:
Dear Mamma, Papa, Dear Brothers: I die at my post. I did not want
to abandon the body of General Maceo, and I stayed with him. I was
wounded in two places, and as I did not fall into the hands of the
enemy I have killed myself. I am dying. I die pleased at being in
the defense of the Cuban cause. I wait for you in the other world.
Your son,
FRANCISCO GOMEZ.
Torro in San Domingo.
(Friends or foes, please transmit to its destination, as requested
by one dead.)
Dr. Zertucha surrendered to a Spanish officer shortly after Maceo
was killed. He said that the dead leader was discouraged by the
continual failures of the insurgents to make any headway against
their foes; that, on account of his color, the subordinate
officers in the Cuban ranks did not show proper respect for him,
or obedience to his commands, and that he had purposely placed
himself in range of the enemy's rifles, deliberately seeking
death.
These statements are manifestly false, and go far to confirm the
belief that the coward who made them had a guilty knowledge
concerning the manner of the death of the brave soldier he
maligned.
AN ESTIMATE OF MACEO'S CHARACTER.
A gentleman who made Maceo's acquaintance in Havana, prior to the
present insurrection, gives this estimate of his character:
"Maceo was a natural politician in that he had the genius of
divining popular opinion, and taking the leadership of popular
movements. He was in Havana at that time sounding men and scheming
for the present revolution. He was always of the sunniest
disposition, closely attaching all people to him, and a man of the
strictest moral integrity. He never drank wine, he never smoked,
and that in a land where tobacco is as common as potatoes in
Ireland, and he never played cards. He had a great abhorrence of
men who drank to excess, and would not tolerate them about him.
"He always dressed, when in Havana, in the most finished style.
His massive frame--he was about five feet ten inches in height and
unusually broad shouldered--was displayed to advantage always in
frock coat, closely buttoned, and he usually wore a silk hat. He
was neat, even to fastidiousness, in his dress. He usually carried
a cane.
"When Maceo took the field, however, he roughed it with his men,
and dressed accordingly. When in battle he carried a long-barreled
38-caliber revolver with a mother-of-pearl handle, and a Toledo
blade made in the form of a machete. The handle of this machete
was finely wrought silver and turquoise shell, and had four
notches in it, into which the fingers could easily fit. Maceo
always had three horses with him on his marches, the favorite
being a big white one."
Probably no event in the war up to that time caused such general
satisfaction among the supporters of the existing government, both
in Cuba and in Spain, as the death of Maceo. When Jose Marti was
killed, they were certain that the loss of that leader would
compel the insurrectionists to abandon hopes of success. On the
contrary, it inspired them with greater determination than before.
But the Spanish sympathizers learned nothing from that experience,
and when it was definitely known that Maceo was no longer to be
feared, they were unanimous in the belief that the end of the
struggle was at hand. Subsequent events have shown how little they
knew of the kind of men with whom they were at war.
"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," and every
Cuban patriot who has fallen in this conquest of extermination has
but added fuel to the fires of liberty, which are sweeping Spanish
rule from the island, leaving the tyrants nothing but the ashes of
their hopes.