Cuban Confederate Colonel: The Life of Ambrosio José Gonzales

Born in Matanzas in 1818 to a prominent family of educators and landowners, Gonzales was schooled in New York and joined Venezuelan-born filibuster Narciso López as his adjutant general in the ill-fated 1850 expedition to the United States. For virtually the entire Civil War, Gonzales was chief of artillery for the Confederate department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida under General P.G.T. Beauregard and his successors. A vindictive sister-in-law waged a cruel campaign to alienate the children from their father, who spent the rest of his life in precarious financial circumstances, struggling to regain the affection of his progeny.