Cuban General Calixto García

General Calixto García could get shot, arrested, and exiled—all before lunch—and still find time to outwit a Spanish general by dinner. When folks talk about Cuban independence, they mention Martí with reverence, Maceo with fire—but they salute Calixto García. The man was a walking revolution with a saber in one hand and Cuba’s heart in the other.

Born in 1839 in Holguín, García came into this world with a grudge against Spanish boots on Cuban soil. His family was Cuban aristocracy with a rebel streak so wide it might as well have been a battle standard. His mama didn’t raise him to kneel, and by the time the Ten Years’ War erupted in 1868, young Calixto was already breathing revolution like it was sweet tobacco air.

When the Spanish cornered him in 1874, wounded and outgunned, García did the most Cuban thing imaginable: he tried to blow his own brains out rather than be captured. The bullet didn’t kill him, but it did lodge in his skull permanently.

Flash forward a couple decades and we’re back at it. The Cuban War of Independence kicks off in 1895, and Garcia returned to Cuba ready to burn sugar fields and Spanish pride. He became second-in-command under Antonio Maceo, and when Maceo was killed in 1896, García took up the reins.

He ran his campaigns with the discipline of a Prussian officer but with the soul of a poet-patriot. He recruited, trained, and commanded thousands, coordinating strikes that made the Spanish sweat through their fancy uniforms.

When the Americans showed up in 1898 for their little Spanish-American War, helped the Army take Santiago de Cuba and even saved some Yankee behinds when they got in over their heads. But when it came time to take Santiago formally, General Shafter refused to let García and his Cuban troops enter the city. Yeah.

He died a few months later in Washington, D.C.—far from the sugarcane and sun he fought for—but not forgotten.

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