Page 153 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1859 CAMPAIGN 151

On June 22, Garibaldi went to Brescia to talk with the King and then to
Bergamo, Milan and Como to inspect the newly formed battalions, while the
column under the command of Cosenz marched through Ospitaletto and
th
Palazzolo to Como, where he took again its command and on the 27 , by
water transferred to Còlico.
Meanwhile on the 24 th of June on the hills of S. Martino, of Madonna
della Scoperta and of Solferino, the allies were covered in glory: the
Sardinians though had
Paid with their blood the lack of those forces sent into the alpine valleys
and led by generals of the like of Garibaldi and Cialdini.
Garibaldi had asked to be preceded by Lieutenant Colonel Medici who,
gathering a few hundred volunteers from the deposits of Bergamo, Como
and Lecco, went to the Alta Valtellina to offer a first resistance with those that
were being recruited.
He had been sent the Bixio Battalion and the Genoese Carabinieri as rein-
forcement. One of Medici aims was also that of conquering the top of the
Stelvio, and to come out - eventually, and despite the prohibition to violate
the Tirol – in Val d’Adige, in the event of a widening of the war it was
deemed necessary to send Garibaldi to the rear of the “quadrilateral”.
The evening of the 28 th the Brigade arrived in Sondrio and on the 30 th
in Tirano.
Its strength, that had been growing, amounted now to 4000 rifles, 60
horses and 8 pieces and soon increased to three times that thanks to the many
volunteers enlisted in Como and Bergamo.
That same day the King wrote to Garibaldi informing him that the 1 st
regiment Hunters of the Apennines, from Piacenza and bound to Como,
would have been under his orders and from now on it would have been part
of the corps of the Hunters of the Alps that he led so well.
However, supplies of clothes, shoes and weapons were scarce, due more to
slowness of bureaucracy than unwillingness of the authorities towards the
volunteers as it has been written many times.
The shrewd Lieutenant Colonel Medici, wonderfully assisted by the brave
Nino Bixio, demonstrated his great skills in that mountain war, fought in the
snow and ice of Varfurva, Reit Mountain, the glacier of Cristallo Mountain
and the Stelvio, so that the enemy thought that he had 3500-4000 men. It is
at this time that Bixio wrote a letter to his wife saying that he feared that the
Hunters of the Alps were due for an inglorious and miserable war in the