Havana was now practically in a state of siege, with a patriot army in possession of Guanajay, and small bands constantly harassing the Spanish troops at different points in the vicinity of the city. The Spanish Captain-General, Dulce, was still nursing the idea that some sort of an agreement might be reached, and at least a truce declared, and he therefore refused to officially declare the besieged condition of the city, and endeavored to placate the patriots by leniency toward the sympathizers in the city, and a conciliatory attitude toward the revolutionists. However, his efforts had little effect on the Cubans. Their forces pressed forward against Santiago de Cuba, and disaster for the Spanish garrison at that city was only averted by the timely arrival of Count Valmaseda with reinforcements. Las Tunas was still in the hands of the revolutionists, who were divided into small parties and were conducting a guerrilla warfare throughout practically the entire Island, attacking whenever it seemed to be to their advantage, and dispersing when the forces sent against them were sufficiently large to give the odds to the Government. Trinidad was practically segregated from the outside world so far as communications by land were concerned. The patriots had stopped the mail service, and had cut the telegraph wires. The city was in a turmoil of fear and apprehension, sending requests for aid whenever they could get word through, which was not frequently, since the patriots took a cynical delight in having so far turned the tables on their oppressors, and in detaining and making prisoners the couriers who tried to reach the Spanish lines with news of Trinidad's predicament.
The patriots did not confine their efforts to any part of the Island, although the major part of them were east of Havana, and only that small stretch of territory embracing the province of Pinar del Rio was comparatively free from trouble. The insurgents were insufficiently provisioned, and so they resorted to pillage. This was particularly true of the bands in the vicinity of Nuevitas, where attacks were constantly being made on the plantations, and the farmers lived in a state of alarm, never knowing when a patriot band might descend upon them demanding food for the present and for the future, and proceeding to take it by force, if necessary. Frequently those who were not in favor of the cause of liberty extended a frightened hospitality, rather than to excite the wrath of their hungry visitors, and resorted to treachery to carry the news of the marauders to some nearby Spanish camp, only to have the rescuing forces chagrined to find, when they arrived, that the birds were not "in the hand," but had been fed, and had fled with their booty. Nuevitas was well garrisoned, and therefore the patriots confined their operations to a region sufficiently remote from the outskirts of the town, so that reprisals would be slow and difficult.