s and of a considerable company of Cubans
who had been enlisted in the United States for the revolutionary army.
Gomez had an effective force of 3,000 men, and reenforcements of 750
under General Lacret, with supplies of food and munitions, were promised
him. But the expeditions, in two steamers, failed to reach him, and
after waiting for them on the coast for two weeks, until his supplies of
food were exhausted, he was compelled to disband his army. Domingo
Mendez Capote, Vice-President of the Cuban Republic, hastened to
Washington, to explain to the government the urgent need of sending
supplies, and as a result renewed efforts were made to land expeditions,
but with little success.

The mission of Lieutenant-Colonel Dorst to Pinar del Rio was similarly
unsuccessful. A few United States troops were landed under protection of
the fire of gunboats, on May 12, but an attempt to deliver a great cargo
of rifles and cartridges to the Cubans was defeated by the Spaniards,
and the American troops were compelled to return to their ship and
depart.

In Oriente Lieutenant Rowan was more successful, owing to the fact that
few Spanish forces remained in that province. He found the Spanish,
indeed, in possession of only the three towns of Santiago, Bayamo and
Manzanillo, and the forts along the railroad; and on April 29 they
evacuated Manzanillo, which was thereupon occupied by Calixto Garcia.
Lieutenant Rowan reported to Washington that Garcia was able to put
8,000 efficient troops in the field, and presently considerable supplies
were sent to him with little difficulty.

Perhaps the most significant information obtained by these American
envoys, and particularly by Lieutenant Whitney in his visit to the Cuban
Commander in Chief, was that the Cubans, while exulting in American
intervention, did not welcome but rather deprecated American invasion
of the island. Maximo Gomez said frankly that he would prefer that not a
single American soldier should set foot on the island, unless it were a
force of artillery, which was an arm in which the Cubans were sorely
lacking. All he asked was that the United States should supply the
Cubans with arms and ammunition, and prevent supplies from reaching the
Spaniards. If that were done, the Cubans would do the rest, and would
expel the Spanish from the island without the loss of a single drop of
American blood.

The reasons for this reluctance to have American troops invade the
island were c