Page 123 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1859 CAMPAIGN 121

sated for the incomplete military training and the poor cohesion present in
that newly formed Corps; the second by saying that he was giving him the
provisional rank of general commander of the Hunters of the Alps Corps that
he would have made famous.
Garibaldi, after his arrest in Chiavari on September 7, 1849, had wan-
dered from Tunis to the Maddalena, to Gibraltar, to Tangier and then in
England, from where he sailed to New York. After a long stay at the home of
the Italian Meucci – the inventor of the telephone – during which he was
occupied making candles, he left towards the end of ’51, in command of a
ship belonging to an Italian-American society, for Lima and from there, in
January ’52, for China. Back in Lima and then New York, he landed in
Genoa in 1854 from where he travelled to Nice to see his three children that
he had not seen for five years, and to pay his respects at the tomb of his
adored mother who died on March 19, 1852. The following year he had
bought part of the desert island of Caprera, which he left on August 13, 1856
to pay his first visit to the Count of Cavour. He had gone back to see the
Count a second time, in a secret meeting near the end of December ’58, com-
ing out of it happy and with the certainty of the imminent war. It was then,
on December 22, that while travelling to Caprera, he wrote from Genoa to
Giuseppe la Farina, how he believed that it was necessary for the King to be
at the head of the army, adding that this would have silenced jealousies and
tittle-tattle “that are unfortunately one of the attributes of we Italians”.
The measure of the passion and unselfishness of Garibaldi’s approach is
shown in his proclamation to the volunteers when he was appointed as com-
mander: “ Those who said as a joke that they wanted to win or die, keep to
your word. I have no epaulets, nor honours to offer: I offer battles and 100
cartridges for each soldier. The sky is my tent, the ground is my bed and God
is my witness”.
The months from January to April saw a slow gathering of the Sardinian
Army towards the Lombard frontier and, on April 25, the Hunters of the
Alps also were brought forwards, although not completely organised yet.
They had been ordered into a small brigade of three regiments, of two bat-
talions each, respectively under the orders of lieutenant colonels Cosenz,
Medici and Ardoino, with a small squadron of hunters on horseback or
guides – among which the young Menotti – under the orders of Simonetta.
st
For the time being, only the 1 and 2 nd regiments were transported by