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The Second Year of the Second War: Maceo

As the month of April closes, we hear little of Gomez compared with that which circulates about Maceo, and whether Maceo is in a desperate situation in the west end is uncertain. There is reason to believe, however, that he is hard-pressed, for other insurgent generals are not doing anything decisive for his relief, and the captain-general is using all means of transportation to concentrate, first, to prevent Maceo's retreat eastward, and second, to crush him. If the insurgents have the authority and resources and means of communication upon which they claim recognition for belligerency, and if they find the sea so open, they will make movements to occupy the Spanish army to a considerable extent remote from Maceo, and land for him canned meat and hard bread and cartridges.

It is not by big battles that the war will be decided. The pivotal questions are the public credit of Spain and the food supplies of Cuba. Regarding famine, we do not believe there is fiction on the wires. The application of the intelligence about the dread calamity is not, as it is comprehended, so partizan as to demand perversity of patriotism. Here is a Havana despatch of April 20th, saying," Reports come from all parts of the Island of much distress, resulting from the concentration of the population in the cities and the desertion of the fields." A letter from Cartagena states that the people are in a terrible condition. There is no work for men, and little food. In Trinidad fish sells for thirty cents a pound, and meat has increased two and a half cents a pounds. In Sancti Spiritus charcoal, formerly forty cents, is now $1.40. All food has advanced equally in price. In Sitio Grande many families are living in tents erected in the middle of the streets." Another despatch from the same place, of the same date, reads: "The situation in Cuba is heartrending; the poverty is appalling; famine stalks through this naked, desolate land. The bread question will presently become as important as the political question. Preparations for relieving the sufferings of the non-combatants must soon be made. Women and children from the interior continue to flee to the United States on every steamer. The benevolence of Americans will soon be tested, or thousands will starve, for everything is being put to the torch."

Thousands of people are in the woods to evade Weyler's order to concentrate in the towns. Both sides are dealing violently with the country people. A letter from Sancti Spiritus says:" It is dreadful to think of the effects of the concentration. It means the death of many families. We have no houses or food for them. The people try to evade the general's order. The Spanish troops have strict orders to burn every house, whether occupied or not. In the districts of Macayabeos and Yayabo, all the houses have already been burned by the Spanish columns, and the inhabitants have been forced to come into the towns, or meet starvation."

The accounts of the estates burned by the insurgents, with immense quantities of cane, the houses, the plantation property of every kind, are appalling, and, with the Spaniards engaged in like work, the speedy reduction of the Island to a desert, visited with every calamity that scourges mankind, is certain.

Thus far, every shape of general misfortune and distress aids to swell the ranks of insurgents. The weyler order for concentration in villages is declared to have thrown thousands of desperate men into the ranks of Gomez in the east end. Driven from their homes, they prefer to go to the army rather than to the garrisoned towns, and the women have been following them, being homeless, and feeling safer in the camps, than in their houses without the protection of husbands, brothers, and sons, all gone into the army. This women movement, however, cannot be general, for they cannot take the children to the army, and so they live in privation and terror, and have places where they hide from the raging savages that have become the beasts of prey.