This is a brief biography of the life of Brigadier General Calixto (Garcia-Iñiguez) Enamorado of Cuba. The general served in the Insurrection against Spain and in its continuation, the Spanish American War.
Introduction:
Son of Major General Calixto Garcia Iñiguez and of Leonela Enamorado Cabrera, Calixto Enamorado was born in the wartime brush (Manigua) at a place called Canapu between Holguin and Santiago de Cuba on the first of June 1874 during the Ten Year War.
According to family tradition Calixto (father of Calixto Enamorado) and his future wife Leonela first met in the camp of Colonel Don Benjamin Ramirez. Ramirez had been wounded seven times was retired from active warfare and was protecting civilians at his camp at the head waters of the Guama del Sur and Guama Rivers. Don Benjamin was also charged with the protection of the first, then recently deposed, President of the Cuban Republic in Arms Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. Don Benjamin and Cespedes cordially disliked each other. Leonela was the sister of Don Benjamin's wife Manuela Enamorado Cabrera.
Calixto and Leonela fell in love. Cespedes, considered Leonela, mentioned as a sister of Don Benjamin's wife to be merely one of Calixto's mistresses; however family tradition is that Leonela was married to Calixto by Father Odio, after Calixto's first wife Isabel Velez, along with Calixto's mother, and retarded brother was captured and believed killed by the Spanish. Cespedes also places Father Odio at the scene, describes the priest as performing a different marriage and all in same paragraph notes the death of Francisco Maceo Osorio. Maceo Osorio is known to have died of fever at a place called Los Horneros at the foot of a mountain in Don Benjamin's great estates.
When Calixto the father is captured and is reunited with his first wife Isabel, Calixto, the son, lost his right to his father's name and was known throughout the rest of the century as Calixto Enamorado. Leonela took her son to Manzanillo, where at the age of four began to attend the famous school of Don Miguel de la Guardia where he became friends with Don Miguel's son Angel de la Guardia.
Little is known about Calixto Enamorado's childhood except that his mother re-married a Spaniard who's last name was Perez, and from that second union, Calixto was gifted with a half brother, Eduardo Perez. He had an uncle "Tio Nestor" Nestor Enamorado of Media Luna south of Manzanillo. Called Nestor Enamorado Cabrera, he became a mambi Commander of the Infantry Regiment Gua in the 1895-1898 Cuban war of Independence. Calixto Enamorado became Brigadier General Oriental Department, Second Corps, Second Brigade. However, Nestor’s parents, and thus Calixto Enamorado's maternal grand parents are listed as Rafael Enamorado and Mariana Cabrera.
Family legend states when Calixto Enamorado was perhaps 15 (about 1889), he was caught and, nearly hung by Spanish troops who released him because he was so young. On the 4th or the 9th of March 1895, at the age of 21, he joined the troops of Maso (or Masso) Parra as a soldier. He participated in the battle of Dos Rios, where Jose Marti was killed, and since he was in the same unit as his friend Angel de la Guardia is very possible that he as family legend states was there when Marti was killed. For most of the war, until Angel was killed, they operated together. At Dos Rios, Calixto Enamorado was promoted to Alferez (Ensign). At the significant battle of Peralejo, where the Spanish Governor was forced to flee the field, Calixto Enamorado was promoted to Lieutenant.
When the "Invasion" occurred, he was made Captain under the orders of Brigadier General Maso Parra. Maso Parra was destined to fall out with Maceo and eventually turned to the Spanish. Not so Calixto, who was ordered to Havana Province by Antonio Maceo where he was charged with communications (Jefe de Despacho) the Brigada Sur (Havana Province South Brigade); in this position Calixto was promoted to Commander for his heroism at the La Luisa action.
Calixto Enamorado returned to Oriente to serve in his father's forces and was charged with leading the Cespedes Regiment. Calixto Enamorado fought in the actions of Loma de Hierro, Lugones, Caureje, Punta Gorda, Taubeque, Jiguani, Barancas, at the successful seige and assault of Guaimaro where he was made Lieutenant Colonel. He led the Las Avispas regiment in the successful assaults through the streets and on the forts of the heavily fortified town of Tunas (28-30 of August, 1897). He is mentioned in dispatches for his bravery in the assault on the strongest position the Cuartel de Caballeria. In this action by fought alongside with his brother Carlos Garcia Velez, his life long friend Angel de La Guardia, Armando de la Riva, and Cuban president to be Mario Garcia Menocal. Angel de la Guardia, who had been with Marti at Dos Rios, and Maceo in the Invasion, died there on the streets of Tuna. Calixto Enamorado was promoted to Colonel.
Later Calixto Enamorado led the Tunas Brigade in the actions such as Breñosa and las Arenas. With Menocal and his brother Carlos he disobeyed his fathers orders and helped make the bloody and failed attack on the Guamo fort near the Cauto estuary. Calixto, with his father and his father's army, entered Bayamo, where it is said in family history he could not get off his horse since his pants were worn through at the seat.
When the assault on Santiago was made he was found blocking the armies of Spanish General Luque so that these forces could not aid the besieged forces of General Toral trapped by the American and Cuban forces in Santiago. In these circumstances he took over the towns of Guabasiabo and San Andres. Calixto ordered Lieutenant Colonel Cornelio Rojas to take over the port of Gibara as the Spanish evacuated that plaza. He was notified of peace on August 18, as he was fighting the Spanish in what seems to have been the last battle of the war at Auras. At the end of the war he was promoted to Brigadier General.
During the Leonard Wood administration of Cuba, now adopted by one his father’s sisters so as to gain his dead fathers name Calixto Garcia-Iñiguez Enamorado was Police Inspector of the National Police. Later he became comptroller (Contador) of the Provincial Financial District of Matanzas.
During the first Cuban government lead by President Thomas Estrada Palma he was consul general of Cuba in Montevideo, Uruguay. During the Magoon adminstration he was consul general in Genoa, Italy and in Hamburg, Germany.
Calixto returned to Cuba in 1913 and next year he was elected Representative to the Cuban House, representing the Conservative party of President Menocal, and was later re-elected. He led a column of volunteer cavalry in the Chambelona war of 1917. Family legend states that he left with dark hair and came back with white locks, not because of stress but because he neglected to bring his hair dye. He was instrumental in decreasing the bloodshed and accepting surrender of defeated Liberal forces at Tunas. That same year he published his novel of the Cuban Ten Year War of Independence "Persecucion."
In 1922, he returned to the diplomatic service first at Inspector general of Consulates, then Consul General in Liverpool, England and later in New Orleans. As Machado was elected became a dictator and fell, he mainly stayed outside of Cuba.
During the first Batista dictatorship, in which his wife's father farm was the site of armed resistance to and killings by the illegal government, he became increasing restive. Resisting pressure to illegally pass contraband, from the first dictatorship of Batista, he resigned his post in 1938. Later, he returned to his farm in the Sierra Maestra of Cuba where he spent the last years of his life with his sons, his guajiro friends and the mistery novels and other books in his fine library. The farm was called “Entre Rios” and the house he built, on a cliff above a lagoon by the Bayamo River was commonly called "La Casa de los Generales."
Calixto Enamorado died, on the 19th of May 1951, the on exact
anniversary of the death of Jose Marti (9). Calixto Enamorado was
76, he left nine children and many descendents the majority of whom live
in the US. There are at least 200 descendents of his father
Calixto Garcia Iñiguez in the US.
"General Calixto Garcia Enamorado" Bohemia Febrero 26 de 1950. A~no
42, numero 9. p. 16.
"El Diario Perdido (de Carlos Manuel de Cespedes)" Editorial de Ciencias Sociales , La Habana, 1994 , collected by the Havana City Historian Eusebio Leal Spengler (p. 283 del libro, p.73 of second original volume).
Juan J.E. Casasus. 1962. Calixto Garcia (El Estratega) 2nd Ed. Oficina del Historiador de La Habana, pp. 16 and following
Carlos Roloff y Mialofsky and Gerardo Forrest 1901. Yndice Alfabetico y Difunctiones del Ejercito Libertador de Cuba. Edited under the official direction of Leonard Wood. Printed in Havana by Rambla y Bauza.
Angel de La Guardia Rosales 1957. Memorias de una Familia de Maestros y Patriotas. Editorial Garantia, Havana. This book on pages 146 to 148 (Las Locuras de la Guerra de Independencia) includes a section written by Calixto Enamorado dated 17 June 1938 which recalls one of the wild risks Angel and Calixto would take in the 1895-1898 war.
Luis Rodolfo Miranda y de la Rua, 1951. Calixto Garcia I~niguez Estratega Academia de Historia de Cuba (24th of February 1951).
Calixto C. Maso. 1998. Historia de Cuba 3rd Edition, Ediciones Universal, Miami
Ayer y Hoy Section. El Pais, volume 25 (91) Havana Wednesday April 16, 1947. p. 8
Guardia Postuma al General Garcia I. Enamorado. El Mundo Havana, Sunday May 20, 1951.
Calixto Enamorado 1917 Tiempos. Heroicos Persecucion. Rambla, Bauza and Company, Havana.