Page 251 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

FROM THE STRAITS TO THE VOLTURNO 249

The morning after, General De Cornè, commandant of the fortress, sent his
men to negotiate the surrender and on the day of November 3 rd the Bourbon
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troops left with military honours and the 1 Savoia Infantry regiment and the
4 th Grenadiers regiment entered the city and took possession of it.
The surrender of Capua with its 57000 men and 290 cannons provided
the opportunity for General Della Rocca to express his congratulations to
Garibaldi for the behaviour of the red shirts, but those were just words and
dutiful pronouncements. In the orderly book directed to his 5 th Corps, he
said to his men: “You fought for the first time side by side with your sister
army, that after arousing universal admiration, now stands as an insuperable
barrier between the painful past of this Kingdom and its glorious future”.
Once completed his remarkable undertaking, and concluded his extraor-
dinary mission, Giuseppe Garibaldi was now on the point of going back to
his far away hermitage, in front of his beloved sea.
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On October 31 , he delivered to the loyal Hungarian legion the flag that
the Neapolitan women had woven for the proud Magyars who had come to
give life to a cause that was not theirs, and on November 4 th he pinned on
the chest of his Mille who had come to Marsala, Calatafimi, Milazzo, the
medal that the city of Palermo had awarded them.
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Finally, on the 6 , in the piazza of Caserta, he inspected those beautiful
legions, that colourful crowd of warriors with the most different uniforms –
red shirts and grey-bluish trousers, simple civilian clothes just marked with a
number, a badge, a handkerchief, Sicilian and Calabrian costumes, uniforms
that looked like those of the regulars, caps, kepis, bersagliere helmets,
Calabrian hats - a crowd of valiant people who had defeated one of the most
renowned armies of that time, knocked down a centuries-old throne, realised,
in a single impetus of faith and enthusiasm, the unification of southern and
northern Italy. The commander, on the saddle of an impetuous horse,
reviewed those ranks – what an unforgettable sight – dressed in the charac-
teristic costume for which he was famous worldwide: a plumed hat with a
large brim, a red shirt bordered in green, grey trousers and high boots, a white
fluttering cape.
The day after, under pelting rain and the frenzied acclamations of the
Neapolitans, who were fortunate enough to see together the two most repre-
sentative men of our Risorgimento, Garibaldi accompanied the King in his
triumphal entrance into the capital, up to the Royal palace and then to the
Cathedral. He was seated in the royal coach, escorted by Generals Türr and