Page 114 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

112 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

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At 6am of July 13 , they started to march on Orvieto, whose gates, how-
ever, he found closed since the rulers of the city were afraid of possible retal-
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iation by foreign troops; and therefore, in the afternoon of the 15 , after a
stop in the open, at the confluence of the Paglia River with the Chiana River,
Garibaldi marched on Ficulle. In the meantime, a number of detachments
patrolled the countryside within a radius of more than 20 kilometres, towards
Terni and Perugia as well as towards the Trasimeno River.
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After spending the night in Ficulle, on the 16 , the main column head-
ed for Città della Pieve, but once arrived at the foot of the mound on which
the city is built, they suddenly turned westwards, crossing the valley of the
Chiana River, through semi impracticable roads and under copious rain;
however, in this way Garibaldi distanced the French more and more and
saved himself also from the Austrians, that according to the latest news was
marching towards Città della Pieve, to block the road to the north.
In Cetona, some cavalry units sent on a reconnaissance reported to the
general that the road was absolutely clear of enemy troops as far as Siena; and
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therefore, during the 19 th and 20 , he advanced as far as Sant’Albino and
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Montepulciano, and on the evening of the 20 , he set his headquarters in
Torrita, fifteen kilometres away from Montepulciano. Here he was informed
that the two main bodies of the Austrian corps gravitated around
Buonconvento and Perugia, the former, 50 kilometres from where he was, the
latter, 60. And he therefore had an advantage of two marches over each of
them, and was in the ideal position to precede them on the Apennine passes.
Only, he did not have time to waste; and therefore the general left Torrita that
same morning, and set off for Arezzo.
Once he arrived in Castiglion Fiorentino, Captain Migliazzo, who had
arrived there one hour before him at the head of a cavalry squad, gave him a
very important document he had found on an Austrian messenger who had
been stopped at the town’s gates: it was a letter from General Paumgarten,
who, on the back of a note by the commander of the Arezzo garrison implor-
ing help, it announced reinforcements for the night between July 22 nd and
23 rd comprising three companies from Cortona.
Garibaldi thought that it was a good occasion for a success over his ene-
mies; and to this end he set an ambush on the road from Cortona to
Castiglion Fiorentino. But the Austrians did not show up; it was later known
that the companies had clashed at Cortona with a detachment of Garibaldi’s