Eduardo Agramonte Piña

Outstanding Cuban patriot of the 19th century, native of the former jurisdiction and current province of Camagüey. He stood out for his participation in the Ten Years' War; he composed the melody of some of the military calls of that conflict.

He was born in the ancient Cuban city of Puerto Príncipe, region of Camagüey (today, city of Camagüey). He studied Medicine and graduated as a surgical physician. Cousin of Major General Ignacio Agramonte (El Mayor), Agramonte Piña joined the Cuban independence process through his conspiratorial activities in the Revolutionary Junta of Camagüey several months before October 10, 1868, the date that marked the beginning of the well-known Ten Years' War.

He was one of the 76 men who carried out the famous uprising of Las Clavellinas on November 4, 1868, a place located in that central region of the Island. This fact reaffirmed him as one of the men possessing the greatest patriotic radicalism in Camagüey, displacing the initial reformist conceptions that arose in the early moments in that region. He also served as a member of the Revolutionary Committee of Camagüey, founded on November 26, 1868 in order to strengthen the struggle in that area of the country.

On November 28, 1868 he participated in the Battle of Bonilla. He was wounded in the leg, being considered the first Camagüeyan injured in a military action in the Revolution of '68. Still injured, two days later, on November 30, he joined the military action at Arenillas. In that same battle he performed his first surgical intervention of the war when Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Recio was wounded.

On February 26 he was elected member of the Assembly of Representatives of the Center, another Camagüeyan revolutionary organization, of a civil character, created to guide the struggle in the region. However, he resigned on March 29 to rejoin the revolutionary army as a surgical physician. Following the Assembly of Guáimaro (April 9-11, 1869) he was elected Secretary of the Interior of the first government of the Republic of Cuba in Arms, although he also temporarily directed the Foreign Secretary's office in the absence of the secretary.

Several historians suggest that due to certain differences with the first president of the Republic of Cuba in Arms, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y del Castillo, he decided to move to the House of Representatives as a permanent member. This occurred on January 14, 1870.

In early 1871 he joined the ranks of the Liberating Army under the orders of Ignacio Agramonte, who assigned him the organization of a battalion. On November 24, 1871 he was appointed chief of the Southern Brigade in Camagüey. He sustained important battles, standing out among them that of San Carlos on October 5, 1871, that of La Matilde on October 20 of that year and that of Hato Viejo; the latter an attack on a Spanish enemy column. For his outstanding military merits on January 10, 1872 he was promoted to the rank of colonel.

On March 8 of that year he received a mortal wound in the chest during the Battle of San José del Chorrillo against the forces of the famous enemy battalion of San Quintín.

Upon his death he left written a compilation of military texts of the era for the learning of the art of war titled "Memorandum on the Art of War". Many of the texts gathered there were translated directly by him and his analyses exemplified with concrete cases of the struggles of '68 to achieve greater understanding on the part of the mambí combatants. Furthermore, he was the author of several military calls used in the daily life of the Liberating Army such as the Diana mambisa and A degüello.

Source: EnCaribe.org