Page 35 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE AMERICAN CAMPAIGNS 1836 - 1848 33

The military situation at the beginning of May 1842, at the time when
Garibaldi agreed to fight Uruguay, was as follows.
The 11.000 or at most 12.000 fighters, available to Uruguay, were divid-
ed into two armies: one with the camp in San José de Canelones northwest
of Montevideo, to control the Uruguay bank of the large estuary of the Plata;
the other, stronger, headed by Rivera, was camped in the faraway Argentinian
province of Corrientes, north of the Entre Rìos, to control precisely the corps
of Urquiza and Echague, who, as ordered by the Argentinian President Rosas,
were manoeuvring in this region.
A great separation of forces then (about 400km as the crow flies), into two
weak nuclei while more appropriately, Oribe, with all its forces joined togeth-
er, had already occupied the area around Bajada on the Paranà River, where
it was in the process of joining also the troops of Urquiza and Echague to
form a single and powerful block with which to head to the enemy’s capital
Montevideo.
The base of the Argentinian army was the Paranà. At the head of the
Argentinian squadron operating in the immense estuary of the Plata, was the
English admiral Brown, renown as very skilled and resourceful seaman. And
the Argentinian ships, not opposed until then, dominated the entire estuary,
from the mouth to the fortified island of Martin Garcia that faces the con-
fluence of the Uruguay and the Paranà, blocking in this way the entire
Uruguay’s coast.

A simple look at the map immediately reveals the seriousness of the situ-
ation of the Uruguay Republic. And it is precisely in this not particularly
encouraging situation that our Hero received from the government of this
Country (dominated by his personal enemy, the minister of war Vidal) a
mandate that could be seen as crazy more than difficult: that of taking the
leadership of a weak fleet (representing the total of the available navy of the
Republic), consisting of three modest ships:
- The Constitución, a corvette armed with 18 guns;
- The Pereyra, a brigantine with 2 revolving pieces of 18 inches;
- The Pròcida, a transport schooner;
and, with this poor ghost of a float, sail along the entire estuary of the Plata
up to the confluent of the two large rivers of the Paranà e Uruguay (200 km.);
penetrate in the course of the large Paranà River (remember that this is the