Although General Máximo Gómez was in command of the Cuban army from 1895 to 1898, the figure who came to represent the Cuban insurgency, at least to a US readership, was General Calixto García Íñiguez. García had the advantage of a romantic history. In 1873, during the Ten Years' War, on the point of capture by Spanish troops, he had put a pistol under his chin and fired. he bullet left a hole in his forehead, but he miraculously survived. Ater he had recovered sufficiently to face a firing squad, Spanish soldiers called attention to how well he had treated them when they'd been captured—so he was just imprisoned in Spain until the war ended, a decision that the Spanish authorities must have deeply regretted. Committed to the Cuban cause, García had returned to Oriente on the night of 24/25 March 1896, landing just north of Baracoa, and had soon been made Gómez's second-in-command.