It is needless to say that this position was a great disappointment to the Cubans, and seemed to them utterly at variance with what they might have expected from a nation so lately torn by Civil War, and which had shown such keen individual sympathies with the cause of the freedom of Cuba. However, from that time on, the United States, officially, at least, showed the greatest patience--a patience which seemed almost unbelievably enduring--toward the hardships which the Spanish authorities put upon innocent Americans, and was indefatigably zealous in its efforts to prevent violations of neutrality on the part of sympathetic United States citizens. That there was some bitterness in the hearts of the Cuban leaders, who felt they had a right to expect the support of their sister republic, and a country which had against such odds won her own independence, it is easy to believe, and there were many who felt that this was a righteous indignation. But during the months in which the Secretary of State and the somewhat unwilling President of the United States were shaping this policy, the war in Cuba was continuously waged. On March 7, 1869, a few days after the Cubans addressed their petition to the United States government, the Spanish attacked a strong Cuban position at Macaca, and were successful in ousting the revolutionists. This disheartening occurrence was followed by defeats for the Cubans, first at Mayari, where Spanish forces under General Valcosta were victorious over a small army of which General Cespedes was in command--General Cespedes, however, effecting a withdrawal with safety to his own person and a part of his supporters--and again at Jiguani, where it was the Cubans who made the attack upon a Spanish force under General Valmaseda, only to meet defeat at the hands of the Spaniards, and to be forced to flee in disorder to their mountain fastnesses.