We have also this testimony from Jesus Rivacoba, an officer of the Volunteers: "We captured seventeen, thirteen of whom were shot outright; on dying they shouted, 'Hurrah for Free Cuba!' A mulatto said, 'Hurrah for Cespedes!' On the following day we killed a Cuban officer, and another man. Among the thirteen that we shot the first day were found three sons and their father; the father witnessed the execution of his sons without even changing color, and when his turn came he said he died for the independence of his country. On coming back we brought along with us three carts filled with women and children, the families of those we had shot; and they asked us to shoot them, because they would rather die than live among Spaniards." Still another officer of the Volunteers, Pedro Fardon, writes: "Not a single Cuban will remain in this island, because we shoot all those we find in the fields, on the farms, and in every hovel. "We do not leave a creature alive when we pass, be it man or animal. If we find cows we kill them; if horses, ditto; if hogs, ditto; men, women and children, ditto; as to the houses, we burn them; so everyone receives his due--the men in balls, the animals in bayonet-thrusts. The island will remain a desert." At the end of the year, the forces under General Maximo Gomez were victorious over those under the Spanish General Bascones, in the district of Camaguey, while the fortified town of Manzanillo was on November 11 taken by storm and occupied by troops under General Garcia. The Cubans lost forty-nine killed and eighty wounded, while the Spaniards lost two hundred killed and one hundred and thirty wounded. On December 2, the battle of Palo Seco occurred. Seven hundred patriots under General Gomez were arrayed against a thousand Spaniards. A lively fight took place, and the Spaniards were put to flight in such disorder that they abandoned their wounded, their arms and their impediments. They lost several officers and two hundred common soldiers, while the Cubans captured seventeen officers, one of them being a Lieutenant-Colonel. The Cuban casualties were small in comparison, being ninety killed and one hundred and six wounded. Among the stores left behind by the fleeing Spaniards were twelve revolvers, sixteen thousand five hundred cartridges, two hundred and fifty Remington rifles, eighty horses, and thirty mules, their packs containing ammunition, clothing and a small amount of money. CHAPTER XVI