Cuban Liberation Army

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Cuban Liberation Army
Ejército Libertador de Cuba
The flag that the combatants of the Cuban Liberation Army carried with them into battle.
The flag used by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and the fighters in Oriente before the Assembly of Guáimaro.
Founded	1868
Disbanded	1899
Service branches	Infantry Cavalry Artillery
Personnel
Active personnel	15,000-53,774
Related articles
History	Ten Years' War (1868-1878) Little War (1879-1880) War of 1895 (1895-1898) Spanish-American War (1898)

The Cuban Liberation Army (Spanish: Ejército Libertador de Cuba), colloquially known as the Mambí Army (Spanish: Ejército Mambí) was an insurgent army which was formed in the last third of the 19th century and fought for independence from Spain and the abolition of slavery. It first saw combat in the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) under the command of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Ignacio Agramonte, and Carlos Roloff. The independentists were decentralized and operated within their own regions autonomously of each other, until the Assembly of Guáimaro established the Republic-in-Arms of Cuba and the Liberation Army's command structure. After the Pact of Zanjón, a brief uprising called the Little War saw Major-Generals Calixto García and Antonio Maceo lead the Army of Liberation in another attempt at independence and the abolition of slavery, though unsuccessfully. Finally, during the War of Independence, the Liberation Army was once again organized to fight against the Spanish colonial government. The Liberation Army would reach its highest count of active members in the Spanish-American War, when an imminent Cuban-American victory caused hitherto anti-independence elites to join the Liberation Army. These recruits were nicknamed "Sunflowers" because they "point to where the sun is shining".^[1]