The Life of General Garibaldi: Translated from his private papers; with the history of his splendid exploits in Rome, Lombardy, Sicily and Naples, to the present time.Garibaldi, Giuseppe
History
The Life of General Garibaldi: Translated from his private papers; with the history of his splendid exploits in Rome, Lombardy, Sicily and Naples, to the present time.
Garibaldi, Giuseppe
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 1807-1882
The small party destined to land first in Calabria were under Major
Missori, and had been picked from the different volunteer corps. They
had been ordered to land on the opposite coast between Scylla and Forte
del Cavallo. It is on the extreme point of the Calabrian shore that
these forts are situate, at a little distance one from the other. The
castle of Scylla stands upon a rock, quite inaccessible from the
seaside. Forte del Cavallo is a little further to the left of it, and
its walls and fortifications slope gradually down toward the road which
skirts the sea, very much like that from Nice to Genoa, which is called
the Corniche Road.
On Wednesday evening, the sky so generally blue and bright in this
country, was covered with dense whitish clouds, and the night,
therefore, was very dark. Garibaldi, who knows how to take advantage
even of the smallest incident, at once ordered Missori to sail. Major
Missori, having embarked his men on board of large fishing vessels,
consequently started at half-past nine o'clock from the Sicilian shore.
The Neapolitan cruisers steaming up and down the straits, though
numerous and powerful, did not seem to possess the eyes of Argus, and
therefore the little expedition was able to land at the intended point.
Before reaching the Calabrian coast, however, one of the boats parted
company from the other, and sailed a little down toward Scylla Point,
just where a Neapolitan battery had been erected. The men on guard in
this battery gave the alarm, and the boat was fired at and one English
volunteer wounded. Garibaldi had ordered Missori to endeavor to surprise
the garrison of Fort Scylla, and to capture the fort. But on hearing the
rattling of musketry, and the report of a gun on his left, Missori
rightly thought that it would be impossible to seize Fort Scylla by
surprise. He therefore hastened to make the concerted signal, informing
the Dictator that he had safely landed, and he and his men ascended the
rough paths into the Calabrian mountains. As for his companions in the
boat which had missed its way, they returned to the Sicilian shore to
relate the cause of their failure.
Menotti, Garibaldi's eldest son, arrived at night from Palermo with 800
of the volunteers of Bertani's last expedition. The Dictator had then
20,000 or 25,000 men. His army had been formed into four divisions. That
of Medici was at Messina, watching the movements of the Neapolitans, who
still held the citadel; the other three were partly concentrated at
Faro, a brigade posted at Milazzo and Barcelona, and another, under
Bixio, was sent to Bronte, in the province of Catania.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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