Page 49 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE AMERICAN CAMPAIGNS 1836 - 1848 47

speech in the House of Lords in London in 1849, praised the constant out-
standing and disinterested work of our Hero.
Having reached the confluent of the Uruguay, Garibaldi separates from
the allied fleets, and alone with his fleet, start his journey up that big river.
At this point, always ready to exploit for his military aims all the avail-
able resource of that virgin and strange country, having established good
relationships with the so called matreros (kind of gauchos, living almost at
the natural state in those regions and all of them incomparable horsemen),
he recruits as many as he can forming a magnificent light cavalry, used to
any risk and led by an irresistible type of warrior, the famous matrero
Captain Juan de la Cruz Ledesma, who was always of great help in that
memorable campaign.
With the aid of these horsemen, that followed on land the advance of the
fleet and invaluable to acquire the necessary supplies with bold raids,
Garibaldi occupies Las Vacas, Mercedes and other important localities along
the Uruguay. It takes Gualeguaychù by surprise. Crosses with his fleet the
enemy’s battery in Paysandù. He carries out a victorious battle near the
estancia Hervidero, against some thousands Argentinians led by General
Garzòn and Colonel Lavalleja.
Finally, taking advantage of a high tide of the river that facilitated the
navigation he reaches his objective with his heroic fleet: the important local-
ity of Salto.
He finds it empty of inhabitants and with the enemy (the same colonel
Lavalleja that he defeated at the Hervidero) camped and defended twenty
miles north, in Itapeby. The banks of the river also were in the hands of the
enemy that having withdrawn flocks and herds, made the raids of Garibaldi’s
cavalry useless. Therefore Garibaldi emerged from a rather awkward situa-
tion with the characteristic serene resoluteness that was his in these circum-
stances.
Meanwhile, he ordered the fortification of the city against possible sur-
prise attacks by Lavalleja; but later, having learned, through the good serv-
ice of informers, the real situation of the enemy, one evening with 200 cav-
alry men and 100 legionnaires, he suddenly moved on the enemy’s camp
with the intention of surprising it during the night.
Because of an error of the guides, the march was somewhat late, and that
strange light Corps of Italians and matreros, arrived near the enemy at dawn.