I have a very good old Cuban biography of Emilio
Nunez called El General Emilio
Nunez by Rafael R. Atunaga. It includes many letters and documents from his whole life (as an appendix). There is quite a bit of correspondence from the time you refer, regarding letters to and from
Marti,
Estrada Palma etc. They are all from
Philadelphia and
Tampa etc.
About the birthplace. The book explains that he was actually born in the finca/ingenio San Francisco and he always stated that and had close ties with the family property. The author explains that back then those lands were under the area of Sagua la
Grande (as were
Santo Domingo etc.). When
Nunez went to officially take Cuban citizenship in 1901 (in Havana) he gave his birthpalce as Sagua without specifics. So in some ways, both are true. The books also includes his baptismal certificate from
La Parroquia de Nuestra Senora de la Esperanza.
What I have briefly seen about
Philadelphia, he enrolled in "The Merchants and Salesmen's Association of
Philadelphia" in about 1881 and became a tobacco salesman (to earn a living), also went to college and graduated in 1888 in dentistry. He got married in
Philadelphia and all but the youngest of his children were born there.
There seem to be various books available about his life since he is such a hero of the War. I found this book through a Miami bookshop via online abebooks.com. If you can't find any documents regarding the
Tampa or
Philadelphia period, I could try to copy some sections, but they are quite extensive, they run from p. 240 to 617 and include 397 individual documents
Good
Luck