Army of Liberation
Of Cuba
-----------
Headquarters
Las Villas, January 1, 1897
Mrs. María Cabrales de Maceo
Costa Rica
My good friend:
Our old friendship, intimate and affectionate, has just been sanctified by the painful bond of a common misfortune.
I can hardly find the words to express to you the bitter pain and immense sadness that fills my spirit. General Antonio Maceo has gloriously died on the field of battle, on the 7th day of the past month, in San Pedro, province of Havana. With the disappearance of this extraordinary man you lose your sweet partner in life; I lose the most illustrious and brave of my friends; and the Army of Liberation loses the loftiest figure of the Revolution.
We have to abide, my good María, by the irrevocable dictates of fate. General Maceo has died at the apogee of a glory achieved by only the greatest of men, and with his fall – in the bosom of immortality – he leaves to his country a name that by itself will be enough, before the rest of humanity, to save Cubans from the horrible stigma of being a people oppressed.
To this, another cruel pain is added in the depth of my soul: that of the loss of my Pancho (1), fallen next to the body of the heroic warrior and buried with him, in the same grave, as if Providence had wanted to grant to my disgrace the sad consolation of seeing the two beings, whose names lived eternally united in my heart, also united in their grave.
You, who are female; you, who can surrender – without embarrassment and without embarrassing anybody – to ineffable floods of grief, please cry. Cry María, for both of us, for you and for me, because this sad old man does not have the privilege of relieving his intimate sorrows by letting himself loose in a sea of tears.
Misfortune creates siblings. Do me the favor, María, of believing that I fraternize with you in all the anguish of your loneliness and your suffering,
Your devoted friend
Máximo Gómez
==================
(1) Francisco (“Panchito”) Gómez Toro, oldest son of General Gómez and his wife Bernarda (“Manana”) Toro de Gómez.
(*) Reprinted from "Revoluciones... Cuba y Hogar," by Bernardo Gómez y Toro, , Imprenta y Papelería de Rambla, Bouza y Compañía, La Habana, 1927.