The foremost military chieftain of the War of Independence, Maximo Gomez y Baez, was a Cuban by adoption rather than birth, having been born at Bani, Santo Domingo, in 1838. He was an officer in the last Spanish army in that island, and went with it thence to Cuba. There he became disgusted with the brutality of the Spanish officers toward the Cubans, personally assaulted his superior, General Villar, and quit the Spanish service, returning to Santo Domingo, where he engaged in business as a planter. At the beginning of the Ten Years' War he returned to Cuba, joined the patriots, and did efficient service, rising to the chief command. After that war he returned to his plantation in Santo Domingo, but in 1895 joined José Marti in leading the Cuban War of Independence. Thereafter his story was the story of the Cuban cause. Declining to be considered a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, he retired to private life after the establishment of independence, and died in 1905, full of years and honor.]
Then Campos attempted a second barricade. He placed a line of troops across the island from Moron to Jucaro, near the western boundary of Camaguey, to prevent Gomez from going on into Santa Clara province. This was the line along which was afterward built a military railroad, and on which was constructed the famous "Trocha" or barrier of ditches, wire fences and block houses. It almost coincided with the line of demarcation between the two ecclesiastical dioceses into which the island was divided. But this attempt to confine the insurrection was no more successful than the other. Indeed it was folly to try to shut the revolution out of Santa Clara when it was already there. Marcos Garcia had left behind him many fervent patriots at Sancti Spiritus, and these soon organized a formidable force under the competent lead of Carlos Ruloff, and took the field, advancing northward and westward as far as Vega Alta. General Zayas and other patriotic leaders operated in the southern part of Santa Clara, and soon that province was almost as fully aflame with revolution as Oriente itself. This was the more significant, because it was a populous and opulent province, where the inhabitants had much to lose through the ravages of war. But like the Romans in the "brave days of old," the Cubans of the revolution "spared neither lands nor gold, nor limb nor life," for the achievement of their national independence.