Oct, 2022 Events had precipitated among Cuban independence fighters at the news of the possible arrest of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y del Castillo, owner of the La Damajagua sugar mill, who began on October 10, 1868, the independence campaign against Spanish colonialism. , the Ten Years' War.
The news of the uprising of La Damajagua was surprising. Céspedes' example was seconded by Bernabé Varona, who was subjected to rigorous surveillance in Nuevitas and upon receiving the news managed to leave the town by throwing himself into the jungle the day that Céspedes took the village of Yara.
Varona was seconded by Chicho Valdés, Pedro Recio, and the Arango brothers, however, others waited for news of Salvador Cisneros Betancourt and remained on the lookout.
The Governor of Camagüey, Brigadier Julián de Mena, faced with the events that occurred in Oriente, proclaimed on October 11 declaring the province in an exceptional state.
Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, who was in Havana seeking financial help from the conspirators, only obtaining promises, decided to return to Camagüey.
The Marquis received a coded telegram from the capital informing him that on the first steamer that left for Nuevitas, the Governor and Captain General Don Francisco Lersundi would send a shipment of 1,500 rifles destined for Camagüey and that they had to be intercepted by the Revolutionary Junta on its way out of the port of this municipality of Camagüey.
With the mission of intercepting the enemy weapons, Salvador Cisneros Betancourt communicated the existing situation and the Camagüeyans did not delay the uprising anymore in numbers of 76 patriots determined to launch into the fight, on November 4, 1868, in the passage of the Las Clavellinas river, three leagues from Puerto Principe, along the road that led to Nuevitas.
Salvador Cisneros Betancourt and Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz remained in the city of Camagüey for other revolutionary tasks, for which they joined the fight later, while in Las Clavellinas Eduardo Agramonte Piña organized the insurgent troops militarily and agreed that the superior commander would be Gerónimo Boza Agramonte.
The first action of the insurgents was the taking of the town of Guáimaro. Due to the geographical and strategic conditions of Nuevitas, the Spanish authorities turned the city and the port into a stronghold and besieged them during the conflict.
On November 4, 1868, the troops of Augusto Arango took the town of San Miguel de Nuevitas without presenting any difficulty. Fulfilling the outlined plan, the assault on the Nuevitas train was arranged, which supposedly would bring a shipment of weapons destined for the Spanish leader of the Camagüey plaza.
They prepared the assault plan and on November 5 at the Santa Isabel mill they remained hidden for two days. As the locomotives passed along the railway near the La Juanita sugar mill, they received notice from Nuevitas, informing them that the government had ordered that the arms not leave for Puerto Principe, that they would expect the Count of Valmaseda to claim them when he arrived in that jurisdiction.
On November 11, Napoleón Arango surrendered El Bagá without resistance, and Ángel del Castillo, on the 13th, prepared another attack, this time on the train traveling from Puerto Príncipe to Nuevitas, which they intercepted occupying the correspondence destined for the Governor of the city and the Captain General of Nuevitas, which were deciphered by Eduardo Agramonte Piña.
That war would last Ten years and had to face regionalism, caudillismo, and other mistakes that prevented its definitive victory.
