Today marks the 151st anniversary of the fall in combat, in the fields of Jimaguayú, of Major General Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz, an outstanding officer of the Liberation Army, whose exploits transcended the immense Camagüey plains and whom José Martí called «Diamond with the soul of a kiss».
Defender at all costs of continuing the armed fight for the independence of the country, in the meeting of the Paradero de Minas he was categorically opposed to the surrender and neutralized the counterrevolutionary maneuver, when he affirmed «Let the lobbying, the clumsy delays, the humiliating demands come to an end once and for all. Cuba has no other way but to conquer its redemption by wresting it from Spain by force of arms».
Member of the Camagüey delegation in the Assembly of Guáimaro, he was one of the drafters of the first Mambisa constitution and was elected representative to the Chamber, position to which he resigned in April 1869 to assume the military leadership of the Camagüey division.
And years later, when a group of fainthearted people tried to convince Agramonte to accept what they considered «an honorable capitulation» and doubted the possibility of fighting because of the shortage of supplies, he assured that he would fight «with shame», and riding his steed, followed by his escort, he returned to the manigua.
Educated in the best schools, son of a well-to-do family, admired for his talent and manor, the young lawyer had a rapid and impetuous political ascent that declined to assume military life and put on foot the territory of Camagüey with important actions where the Rescue of Brigadier Julio Sanguily stands out.
In his troops, the landowner and the former slave, the artisan and the day laborer, the intellectual and the farmer, whites, mulattos, blacks and even Chinese fraternized; several internationalists, among them the New Yorker Henry Reeve, El Inglesito, fought under his command.
About Ignacio Agramonte José Martí affirmed «Without more military science than his genius, he organizes the cavalry, remakes Camagüey, maintains in the forests war workshops, combines and directs victorious attacks».
For another great man of the Homeland, General Máximo Gómez, with the death of the Major «Cuba lost one of its hardest working sons and the Army one of its most knowledgeable and brave soldiers».
