Page 188 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

186 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

killed three Bourbon soldiers and wounded another seven soldiers in the
square in front of the royal palace where the Bourbon troops were gathered.
And so the day ended up with the sinister roar of bombs exploding here
and there; but the population, instead of being frightened, replied by light-
ing up all windows as though it were day-time, moving in pilgrimage to
Piazza Pretoria, and multiplying the barricades. In the meantime, from Porta
Termini many people came to swell the insurgents’ ranks; and Corrao was
approaching with the squads of the deceased Pilo.
On that day the royal forces had 120 inured and perhaps as many casual-
ties. In the lines of Garibaldi’s troops and the insurgents, Rocco La Russa,
Stanislao La Mensa, Giovanni Garibaldo, Pietro Inserillo and Giuseppe Lo
Squiglio had died; Tüköry had been seriously wounded and died on June
th
6 , after enduring the amputation of a leg; Benedetto and Enrico Cairoli,
Bixio, Enrico Piccinini, Placido Fabris, Leonardo Cacioppo, Raffaele Di
Benedetto and many others had been wounded.

st
May 28 th - At dawn the 1 and 2 nd foreign battalions arrived in the har-
bour, but Lanza ordered them not to disembark.
The bombardment continued more wearily.
The royal troops stopped to communicate with the stronghold of Castellam-
mare and the hospital, and this helped a lot the injured in Garibaldi’s troops.
Garibaldi and the insurgents attacked the military positions at the Monte
di Pietà, the Benedictine and Annunziata monasteries and the Montalto ram-
part. Lanzo did not send reinforcements and the defenders were forced to
abandon them.
Corrao, in the meantime, went down to the western part of the city, met
and fought the royal troops at Olivuzza and pushed them back towards S.
Francesco di Paola, drove them out of Villa Filippina, and entered victorious
from Porta Carini. He ordered to occupy the Cathedral and from the tower bell
his men shot at the royal forces crowding the place in front of the royal palace.
The lack of a strong leader to organize the royal forces was already mak-
ing its effects felt: dismay seized the troops, desertions multiplied. Despite the
number of channels they could rely on, the royal troops were lacking food
supplies, 800 injured were hospitalized in the royal palace and they lacked all
necessary things. The official bulletin did not find anything better but to
announce that Garibaldi had arrived in Palermo in despair, after the defeats
suffered in Parco, Piana dei Greci and Corleone.