From the street of the Accounting Office of Camagüey
Eugenio Sánchez y Agramonte (1865 – 1933) was born in the mezzanine house above the hall marked with no. 50 in the old Carnicería Street -which many would later call Accounting Street, current Lugareño no. 245- April 17th, 1865. His parents were well known among the principeña aristocracy, Francisco Sánchez Betancourt and María de la Concepción Agramonte y Boza, whom their relatives called Concha Agramonte.
From an early age, Eugenio grew up in danger and privation due to the Ten Years’ War, to which he and his brothers marched to the town of Guáimaro and then to the San José and San Rafael farm in the Najasa mountains, after the occurrence of the fire that destroyed the insurgent town and constituent cradle, on May 10th, 1869, by order of the General in Chief of the Liberation Army, Manuel de Quesada Loynaz, and what prevented the settlement from being taken by troops under the command of the Count Valmaseda Blas Villate.
On these farms, Eugenio spent a short time until, in 1871, Concha Agramonte and her other children -including her little Emilia and other relatives- were captured by a Spanish guerrilla who brought them to Puerto Príncipe, until they were deported, however, a measure reconsidered and revoked by the military superiors, but due to security requirements, Concha and Eugenio and other brothers were forced to emigrate to New York City in the United States.
In that city, Eugenio attended public school and later enrolled at Saint John’s College, Fordam County, until 1880.
Return to Camagüey to the armed struggle
In Puerto Príncipe, Eugenio Betancourt completed his bachelor’s studies at the Colegio de las Escuelas Pías, where he shared a friendship with Pepito Martí, son of José Martí Pérez and Carmen Zayas-Bazán from Camagüey. Later, in 1886, he enrolled in the Royal and Literary University of Havana, until he received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine, specialty of surgeon, which earned him to practice in the Isle of Pines.
He later returned to Camagüey to practice as a forensic doctor and assume the direction of the Hospital del Carmen. In that position he learned of the summons that Martí had sent to his father Pancho Sánchez and Concha Agramonte, with the aim of conspiring in silence to restart the War of Independence, in 1895. He learned about it from Martí, because in January 1892 the martiano agent Enrique Loynaz del Castillo visited the family home in Contaduría to deliver the Bases and Statutes of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
Everyone in that home responded to Martí. Eugenio and his brother Armando Sánchez went to war. Eugenio worked under the guidance of Salvador Cisneros. Finally, when the uprising of the people of Camagüey took place, in June 1895, Eugenio joined the insurrection led by General Máximo Gómez on the 6th, with whom he marched to Havana, working as a doctor at the General Headquarters with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
He also marched in the Invading Column to the West, arriving at Cuatro Caminos, Pinar del Río, until returning to Camagüey with his escort, to dedicate himself to organizing the Military Health Corps. In addition, he reorganized the field hospitals and ensured the distribution of medicines and surgical material.
Months later, on September 15th, he was promoted to Colonel, and later to Brigadier General, on December 4th, 1895, being appointed Superior Chief of the Military Health Corps of the Third Liberation Army Corps of Camagüey -position from which he elaborated the Military Organic Law project. A brilliant military career characterized by various combat actions and medical services earned him merits and honors from his colleagues and the officers of the Liberation Army.
Eugenio Sánchez was responsible for preparing an armed expedition that had to go to Puerto Rico from New York to contribute to its independence. To this end, Dr. Eugenio Sánchez went to France to contact the Puerto Rican patriot Ramón Emeterio Betances, who dismissed the daring liberation project for giving priority to the Cuban independence cause, giving the doctor the sum of 10,000 pesos and a stash of medicines.
However, he went to New York to return to Cuba from the Florida port of Fernandina on the steamer Dauntless, an expedition under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Lechuga, on February 14th, 1898, disembarking at Nuevas Grandes, the north coast of Camagüey, on the 20th.
Dr. Eugenio Sánchez did not approve of the Yankee intervention on January 1st, 1899, and he remained so until he died among his children and grandchildren in Havana on March 8th, 1933.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
