Page 37 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE AMERICAN CAMPAIGNS 1836 - 1848 35

fleet; the surprise docking in the search of the supplies necessary to continue
the undertaking; the harsh land battles that often followed the extremely hard
warping manoeuvre to cross by strength of arms the river’s rapids, forever
under the threat of the implacable enemy; the welcome encounter with the
small fleet (two cutters and a bilander armed for war) sent in aid of Garibaldi
by the allies of the still far province of Corrrientes, with excellent pilots and
fresh food; and finally the fatal halt at Costa Brava (after about 700 km and
one and a half months of hard and difficult navigation in front of an insur-
mountable bank emerged because of exceptional low water of the river that
made impossible the passage of the Constitución, the biggest of Garibaldi’s
ships.
Forced to stop, Garibaldi had to immediately worry about a possible
attack by Brown’s squadron, who by now having become aware of the decep-
tion, must have picked up his trail along the Paranà. In fact, on the 15 of June
1842, the enemy seemed confident of its clearly superior strength and confi-
dent of a victory. What followed was the memorable and glorious naval and
land battle of Costa Brava (or Nueva Cava) of which we will talk later in
more details.
Garibaldi’s fleet was staying on the left bank of the Paranà, alongside a
fairly large and deep canal and below the bank that had stopped his journey,
at least that of the larger ships. The vicinity of the bank could have meant a
possibility for Garibaldi to abandon the ships, disembark everybody and con-
tinue by land towards his objective of reaching Corrientes. This choice
though, although less perilous than confronting the mighty attack of the
enemy’s ships, was not in the taste of the brave Italian seaman, for whom the
heroic safeguard of military honour was a far more important law than that
of life. And his men, who knew their leader well, readied themselves to accept
bravely the unequal battle with the same enthusiasm, with no possibility of
retreat, at least not along the river.
Garibaldi arranged his vessels in a line, mooring them with great difficul-
ty starting from the near left bank, next to which he moored a cargo ship with
four guns. In the middle he placed the Pereyra and on the right of it, where
the water was deeper, the Constitución. The left battery of the corvette, that
had more and more powerful weapons, entered easily the navigable canal
along which the enemy was going to move forward. Behind, in second place,
he placed the light fleet of Corrientes, on which he didn’t place much trust