ind them the advancing armies left a broad swath of blackened
desolation, above which gaunt, tall chimneys towered solitary, above
twisted and ruined machinery, grim monuments of the passing of the
destroyer. Day after day the inexorable terror rolled toward the
capital. On the last day of the year the vanguard of the patriot army
was at Marianao, only ten miles from Havana, and every railroad leading
out of the city was either cut or had suspended operations. Two days
later Campos proclaimed martial law and a state of siege in the
Provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio. Thus the new year opened with the
entire island involved in the War of Independence. Nor was it merely a
nominal state of war. Already Pinar del Rio was overrun by bands of
Cuban irregulars, who destroyed the cane fields of Spanish Loyalists and
ravaged the tobacco plantations of the famous Vuelta Abajo. But this was
not enough. On January 5, 1896, Gomez, leaving Maceo and Quintin Bandera
to hold Campos in check at Havana, drove straight at the centre of the
Spanish line which strove to bar his progress westward, broke through
it, and marched his whole army into Pinar del Rio.

That was the beginning of the end for Campos. In desperation he flung
all available troops in a line across the western part of Havana
Province vainly hoping, since he had not been able thus to keep him out
of Pinar del Rio, that thus he could keep Gomez shut up in that
province, deprived of supplies or succor. Meantime he sent three of his
ablest generals, Luque, Navarro and Valdez, into the western province,
in hope of capturing Gomez. But the wily Cuban chieftain played with
them, marching and countermarching at will and wearing them out, until
he had completed his work there. Then as if to show his scorn at
Campos's military barriers, he burst out of Pinar del Rio and reentered
Havana, sweeping like a besom of wrath through the southern part of that
province, and defeating the army of Suarez Valdez near Batabano. Then,
while all the Spanish columns were in full cry after Gomez, Maceo
crossed the border into Pinar del Rio at the north, and marched along
the coast as far as Cabanas, destroying several towns on his way.

From Batabano the Cubans under Gomez and Angel Guerra turned northward
again, and by January 12 were at Managuas, in the outskirts of Havana,
from which the sound of firing could be heard in the capital itself. The
railroads had been stopped before, and now all t