Cienfuegos, August 4 (RHC)-- The people of Cienfuegos province commemorated today the 147th anniversary of the fall in combat of internationalist hero Henry Reeve at the National Monument inaugurated in October 1978 to remember "El Inglesito", as he was known among Cubans.
Members of the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics gathered to evoke the young brigadier of the Liberator Army in Yaguaramas, Abreus, in a ceremony in the area where he fought his last battle, presided over by Eleidy Castellanos Estopiñales, member of the Provincial Committee Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and Marylin Hernández Ferrer, Secretary of the Government in the territory.
Also present were students and local health professionals, other leaders of the Party, the Government, the Union of Young Communists, mass organizations, the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution (ACRC), the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.
Yadira Pérez Negrín, first secretary of the PCC in Abreus, recalled passages of the life in campaign of El Inglesito, who demonstrated in many scenarios his pro-independence and anti-slavery position.
Inspired by his example, she recalled, in September 2005, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro founded the "Henry Reeve" brigade, whose most recent work was the confrontation of the COVID-19 pandemic in several nations, an example of solidarity, cooperation and internationalism.
We will continue the legacy of Reeve, the American who did the most for Cuba, transforming into facts Marti's preaching that Homeland is humanity, he emphasized.
During the ceremony, new militants joined the ranks of the Communist Party of Cuba, while the ACRC presented the 30th Anniversary Seal to those who with their attitude have been able to defend the Homeland.
According to several authors, Henry Reeve, born on April 4, 1850 in Brooklyn, New York, joined the Civil War in the United States and fought in the ranks of the anti-slavery north against the slave-owning south; later he joined the expedition of the steamship Perrit under the name of Henry Earl and occupied the position of orderly soldier under the command of General Thomas Jordan, in order to participate in the Ten Years War.
Once in Cuba he was under the command of Major General Ignacio Agramonte, who nicknamed him El Inglesito, and later he joined the ranks of Major General Máximo Gómez, who noted that Reeve had a purely military character and to his proven courage he united an uncommon rectitude and seriousness, reasons why his soldiers respected and loved him.
He participated in around 400 actions, among which stands out the lightning operation led by El Mayor to rescue Brigadier Julio Sanguily.
At the age of 26, while campaigning between Colon and Cienfuegos on August 4, 1876, the intrepid young man confronted Spanish troops in the vicinity of Yaguaramas, in an unequal battle in which he received multiple wounds.
After falling from his horse and being unable to get up, El Inglesito defended himself with a machete in one hand and a revolver in the other, but, having run out of strength and ammunition, he shot himself in the temple to avoid falling alive at the mercy of the enemy; he had served for seven years in the Liberator Army in the Great War. (Source:ACN)
