Eduardo Agramonte Piña, a patriot from Camagüey with an uncompromising pro-independence stance, participated in various combative actions. He is the author of the bugle calls “Diana mambisa” and “A Degüello”, turned into military orders of the Cuban Liberation Army together with the military work Memorandum on the Art of War.

If early in the morning, at 6:00, you approach the Ignacio Agramonte Park in the city of Camagüey, you will gladly participate in a solemn act of Cubans: The flag ceremony. The bugle call of the “Diana mambisa ” recalls one of the most important moments of an insurgent camp.

And, on the other hand, if you enjoy the cartoons of Elpidio Valdés -that protagonist of so many almost improbable stories of the Cuban mambises who accompanies different generations to remember the liberating deeds of the 20th century- you will immediately understand the significance of the call « A Degüello »

However, if I were to ask who was the author of both bugle calls turned into military orders of the Cuban Liberation Army, few would answer the question, because we owe a debt to the life and work of Eduardo Agramonte Piña.

Who was this man from Camagüey considered the first principeño wounded in the Revolution during the combat of Bonilla, who participated in various combative actions until his death on March 8th in the San José del Chorillo combat at only 31 years of age?

The answers can be many. If we define him with a word, he is a hero; if we do it with several words: a man of infinite sensitivity and intense love for Cuba. For the historian Elda Cento Gómez, “his life is an example of that confluence of skills that made many personalities in our history unique.”

Two peculiar cases in the region are Major General Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz and Colonel Eduardo Agramonte Piña. Both married the sisters Matilde and Amalia Simoni Argilagos, and shared their independence ideals.

A deeper study of his work is due to Eduardo Agramonte. Graduated as a medical surgeon, professor at the Secondary Education Institute of Puerto Príncipe and contributor to the publications Crónicas del Liceo de Puerto Príncipe and the newspaper El Oriente. He conspired against Spain as a member of the Revolutionary Board of Camagüey, and was one of the first to take up arms on November 4th, 1867 in Las Clavellinas.

Member of the Assembly of Representatives of the Center, in Guáimaro he is appointed Secretary of the Interior of the Republic of Cuba in Arms. He also temporarily held the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although a year later his discrepancies with Carlos Manuel de Céspedes made him resign and go to the House of Representatives.

His military merits as chief of the Southern Brigade endorse his promotion to colonel of the Liberation Army. On March 8th, 1872, he was mortally wounded in front of the San Quintín battalion in the San José del Chorrillo battle, while protecting the withdrawal of his comrades-in-arms.

There is a little known aspect of his life, and it is his dedication to studies on military tactics and strategies of the time, which he translates and compiles in the work: Memorandum on the Art of War, to which he added Cuban experiences as examples that would serve to instruct the mambises officers in both aspects.

In May 2007, the Spanish archaeologist Javier Navarro Chueca donated to the Office of the Historian of Camagüey city copies in digital format of the correspondence between Eduardo and Matilde, whose originals are preserved in the Library of the Royal Spanish Academy of History belonging  to the Fernández Duro Collection.

Their correspondence is almost unknown among Cubans despite being a labor of love that in difficult times stands as an ethical message that cannot be postponed.

In one of his missives, Eduardo writes to his wife: “Don’t be careful, my soul, no one more than me wants to return to our idolized family but honored and dignified, and I will do everything I can to get it soon…” .

Matilde replies «[…] that if I have to see you disgraced I prefer to see you dead […] but forgive my soul torn by pain I am telling you incredible things, you disgraced, not my treasure, if I had believed you for a moment capable of being, I would not I would have loved you as I adore you and will idolize you forever”

Let her words serve to pay homage to whom Martí described «[…] Eduardo Agramonte passes by, handsome and good, taking away souls…».

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García