place, followed by the bloody police outrage on the people and the
threatening prophecy written by night upon the walls. On the 13th word
passed through the city that the prophecy was fulfilled.
“Garibaldi has landed at Marsala!”
It was on the 11th of May that Garibaldi and his expedition of a
thousand men succeeded in entering the island. Two English ships
stood between him and the royal cruisers, which gave chase, until men
and arms were all safely on shore. The two Genoese merchant vessels
that had brought the expedition were abandoned to capture, and the
march began across the island. Nothing was left to the adventurous
Thousand--old revolutionists and young university students from
northern Italy, Hungarian officers of 1848, and French and Polish
sympathisers with all that invoked the name of liberty--but to take
Palermo or die.
The next day they were at Salemi, where, on the 14th, Garibaldi
proclaimed himself Dictator of the island in the name of King Victor
Emanuel. The guerilla bands and the _picciotti_ began coming in
from every quarter.
On the 15th the Thousand came face to face with the royal troops,
which had taken strong positions along the hills overlooking the road
at Calatafimi, fifty miles from Palermo. The only pitched battle of
the campaign took place here. The _picciotti_, with all their
goodwill, showed that they would be of little use in open warfare.
They could not endure the fire of regular soldiers, and still less
execute the charges necessary for capturing the positions of the
enemy. But the Thousand of Garibaldi were a host in themselves. The
Genoese Carabineers were accustomed to his methods of fighting. Even
the university students had been trained and hardened to practise his
maxim, “Lose no time with artillery, but use your bayonets!”
General Landi and his thousands of regular soldiers were driven back,
and the next day they beat a disorderly retreat as far as Palermo.
The _picciotti_, from the shelter of every rock and clump of
bushes, picked off their men by the way. The soldiers, in turn, sacked
and pillaged the villages of Partanico and Borghetto. The Neapolitan
officers complained bitterly that their mercenaries preferred pillage
to fighting. Garibaldi, ever seeking to draw all Italians to himself,
praised the bravery of the Neapolitans while congratulating his own
army on its victory. It had cost him dear. There were eighteen of the
Thousand among the killed, and 128 were wounded.
After a day of rest, Garibaldi marched forward, and on the 18th he was
already on the mountains in sight of Palermo. There his men bivouacked
in the rain. On the 20th he advanced his outposts to within a mile of
Monreale, whence the high road leads directly down to Palermo, not
five miles away. He now decided not to try to force an entrance into
the city from the side of Monreale. He could not hope to make his way
across the plain and past the headquarters of the royal army, even by
night, without sacrificing half his men. He chose instead a movement
that, perhaps, no other military man of the age would have attempted.
Garibaldi himself said ever after that it could have been executed only
in Sicily, under the circumstances of the time. To its success it was
essential that the enemy, lying below in sight of his own camp fires,
should have no knowledge of what was going on until all was over. The
_picciotti_ may not have been able to take their part in regular
battle; but there were no traitors among them, nor in the mountain
villages through which the expedition was to pass.
The evening of the 21st fell dark and rainy. With nightfall the
Thousand set out on a toilsome march by unfrequented paths over three
mountain tops to Parco. Garibaldi wished to move round from the west
to the south of Palermo, nearer to the sea. Their few pieces of cannon
were dismounted and carried on the backs of the men. At three in the
morning the little army was at its destination, wet, and worn out
with fatigue, but without a man or gun or precious cartridge missing.
The _picciotti_ had kept the camp fires blazing above Monreale.
General Lanza, who had just been appointed the king’s _alter ego_
in Sicily, was not to learn of the stolen march for many hours to come.
The day was passed in taking up positions along the zigzag mountain
road leading up to Piana dei Greci, six miles further back from
Palermo. Only then, after a night and a day of toil, the men bivouacked
around their works.
At daydawn of the 23rd Garibaldi and Türr--the Hungarian, who was
his other self in the expedition--climbed a summit whence they could
command a view of Palermo and the plains around. The mayor of Parco had
just provided the dreaded leader and his companion with sorely-needed
trousers. They looked down on a gallant display of arms. With the
exception of the necessary garrison for the forts and a few posts
in the city, the royal troops were all in camp on the plains to the
west and north of the city or by the headquarters of the general in
the great place before the royal palace. Garibaldi’s practised eye
estimated their number at 15,000 men, and new reinforcements were
arriving. To oppose them in serious conflict he could count on not 800
valid men.
Even as they looked, a body of troops, 3,000 to 4,000 strong, began its
march on Monreale. When they reached the hills their movements were
impeded by the ceaseless fire of the _picciotti_ sheltered behind
the positions left by the Thousand. The firing continued during the day
and into the night.
When the morning of the 24th came, Garibaldi could see that General
Lanza, with thousands of men at his disposal, was carrying out a plan
of attack skilfully designed to envelop and sweep away his little
army. Beyond Monreale the corps which had marched out yesterday was
rapidly advancing toward Piana to surround his left. From below another
strong body of troops was marching directly on Parco. Türr was at
once sent to save their few pieces of artillery, and, with the help
of the Carabineers and _picciotti_, to guard the left. Garibaldi
began hurrying on the march to Piana. Türr’s men were soon attacked by
three times their number, and the _picciotti_ fled in dismay. The
Carabineers succeded in escaping amid the hills, while Türr, with two
companies, held the enemy with his cannon.
At half-past two in the afternoon the whole army arrived safety in
Piana. In the evening General Garibaldi held a council of war with
his colonels, Türr, Sirtori, and Orsini, and with Signor Crispi, a
long-exiled Sicilian lawyer whom he had made his Secretary of State.
He proposed his final plan, which was to deceive again and divide the
forces of the enemy. It was put in operation on the spot.
Orsini, with the artillery and baggage and fifty men for escort, began
an ostentatious retreat along the road leading to Corleone, many miles
further in the interior. For one half-mile the general and the bulk of
the army followed after. The royal outposts on the left hastened to
bring the information to General Lanza, who was commanding in person,
and he at once sent his whole body of troops in cautious pursuit. In
the dense wood of Cianeto, Garibaldi and his men left Orsini to draw
the enemy further and further away, while they turned into a path that
led to Marineo.
The night was clear, and Türr and Garibaldi, as they marched side
by side, looked to the star of the Great Bear, which the latter
had connected with his destiny from a child. “General,” said the
Hungarian, “it smiles on you. We shall enter Palermo.”
At midnight the little army bivouacked in the forest. At four o’clock
they were again on foot, and at seven they were at Marineo, where
they passed the day. With the night they took up again their secret
march, and at ten they reached Misilmeri. La Masa was there with a
few thousand _picciotti_, and there were a few members of the
Committee of Sicilian Liberties. These were told to notify their
friends in the city that the attack would be made on the morning of the
27th. Türr sent word to Colonel Ebers, his compatriot and correspondent
of the London _Times_ in Palermo, to come out and share in the
adventure.
[Illustration: “‘GENERAL, IT SMILES ON YOU.’”]
The day of the 26th was employed in making ready. Garibaldi passed
the _picciotti_ in review at their camp of Gibilrossa. Then he
ascended Monte Griffone to study the city and plain beneath. The royal
guards along this south-east side of the city were almost within
hearing of a trumpet blast from his mouth. They did not dream that he
was nigh.
III.--THE DESCENT OF THE THOUSAND.
The sun set on the evening of the 26th in a mass of red vapours,
portending the heat of the night. The army of Garibaldi was already
forming on the table land of Gibilrossa, in the order which they were
to follow in their attack on the Porta di Termini of Palermo.
First came the leaders, with Captain Misori at their head, and three
men from each company of the Thousand under the command of Colonel
Tukery. They were in all thirty-two men. Immediately behind them was
the first corps of the _picciotti_. The first battalion of the
Thousand followed, under the command of Bixio, who was afterwards a
famous general. Garibaldi came next, with Türr and the remainder of his
Staff, followed by the Second battalion under Carini. Last of all was
the second corps of _picciotti_ and the Commissariat. In all they
were 750 trained and veteran soldiers--all that was available of the
original 1,065--with two or three thousand _picciotti_, preparing
to face 18,000 regular troops of the King of Naples.
It was essential to the success of their enterprise that the alarm
should not be given in Palermo until as late as possible. Even if they
had wished to follow it, there was no direct road to the city. With
as much order as might be, they clambered down the sides of a ravine
which led to the valley opening on the highway. It was eleven o’clock
when they arrived at this point. Tukery halted his men to see if
order was being kept in the rear. The _picciotti_ had completely
disappeared. A false alarm on the mountain-side had sent them flying.
Two hours were needed to re-form the line, when it was found that
their numbers were now reduced to 1,300 men. With all these delays, at
half-past one in the morning they were still three miles from the city.
They marched forward in close columns until they came up with the
Neapolitan outposts. It was now half-past three, and still dark. The
soldiers fired three gun-shots and retreated to their guard-house. This
was enough to disperse two-thirds of the _picciotti_ who remained.
The thirty-two men composing the vanguard of Garibaldi now dashed
forward to the bridge over the Oreto. This Ponte dell’ Ammiraglio,
by a strange coincidence, was the scene of the first combat of Robert
Guiscard, the Norman, with the Saracen lords of Palermo, nearly 800
years before, and of Metellus with the Carthaginians 1,200 years before
that. It was now defended by some 400 men. The soldiers of Garibaldi
first attacked them by a running fire from behind the trees along the
road, and then entered on a hand-to-hand fight. A single captain,
Piva, was able to bring down four Neapolitans with six shots from his
revolver. Misori hastened back to summon Bixio. The first battalion
charged, followed by Türr at the head of the second. The bayonets now
came into play, and the Thousand had won their first position.
The alarm was now thoroughly given. While the defenders of the bridge
were fleeing to the right, a strong column of the royal troops advanced
on the left. Türr sent thirty men to stop their advance, and the rest
of the Thousand charged past with fixed bayonets.
[Illustration: THE COAST OF PALERMO, LOOKING TOWARDS TERMINI.]
The Neapolitans now fell back on the street leading to the gate of
Sant’ Antonino, at the end of the Via Maqueda. This road was lined with
the houses of a small suburb, and cut across the street of Termini, by
which Garibaldi’s men hoped to enter the town. The old gate of Termini
had been torn down by King Bomba, and the street leading to the bridge
widened to facilitate the movement of his troops. It now served the
purpose of those who were trying to overthrow the rule of his son.
The Neapolitan commander had already placed two cannons in the Via
Sant’ Antonino, and at every moment their shots swept across the path
of Garibaldi. Even his veterans held back for a moment. A carabineer
seated himself in a chair in full line of the firing, to persuade the
_picciotti_ to go on.
Garibaldi now came up, just as his faithful Tukery fell mortally
wounded. As if animated by his death, one of the leaders seized the
banner of United Italy, and bore it unharmed through the enemy’s fire.
He was followed by five others, and, little by little, the whole line
passed under the eyes of their general. He alone was on horseback, and
the most exposed, as he urged his men forward.
Two hundred men were soon scattered through the different streets
of the city, nearest to the gate; and their leaders penetrated to
the old market, which had been the place of the revolution in 1848.
Garibaldi soon arrived in the midst of the fire which the royal troops
were keeping up on the rear of the little column. The members of the
Committee of Palermo were waiting to receive him. He at once gave
orders to make barricades behind, and thus entrenched himself in the
midst of his enemies.
The people in the houses remained deaf to his first appeal; but by
dint of calling they were at length induced to appear at the windows,
where the sight of their deliverers gave them courage. Mattresses were
flung from every window, and soon piled up over the barricades most
exposed to the royal artillery. Then a few of the inhabitants began
showing themselves in the streets. They had but one answer to give to
the invitation to join with the invaders: “We have no arms.” But they
lent themselves bravely to the tearing up of paving-stones for the
barricades, and the soldiers of Garibaldi found places of vantage in
their houses.
With a part of his men Garibaldi now made his way to the centre of the
city, where the Via Maqueda is crossed at right angles by the long Via
Toledo (now the Corso Vittore Emanuele), leading from the port through
the whole length of the city to the Royal Palace. The number of his
men was greatly exaggerated in the imaginations of his opponents,
and he easily drove back the royal troops close to their general’s
headquarters at the Palace. The Bourbon Government had just been paving
this street with large flags. These were now torn up and built into
barricades, while waggons and obstructions of every kind were thrown
across the neighbouring streets.
At this moment the bombardment of the city began from the Fort of
Castellamare, in the bay, and from the Royal Palace. The warships
with their great guns swept all the streets within line of their
fire. Three days were next taken up with the constant advancing and
retreating of the now infuriated soldiers of the king, aided by the
steady downpour of shot and shell on the quarters where the men of
Garibaldi--the Italians, as they were now called, even by their
enemies--had entrenched themselves. But the crumbling of walls only
aided to the making of new barricades, and impeded all the movements of
the regular troops. As the royal mercenaries abandoned their positions,
they set fire to the buildings they had left. The convent of the White
Benedictines was burned, with fifty of the prisoners who had been
confined in it. All Palermo worked actively with Garibaldi and his men,
in a fury of rage against the royal army. Soon there remained to the
latter only the two forts of the harbour, the Royal Palace, and the
post at the Flora below the Porta di Termini, by the bay. Even these
could no longer communicate with each other nor receive provisions.
Garibaldi had now conquered once more. On the fourth day the king’s
general asked for an armistice--to bury his dead. It was prolonged,
and at last the king ordered that the troops should evacuate the city,
provided that the garrison in the forts might depart with the honours
of war. To save the lives of the prisoners still confined, this was
granted. On the 20th of June the last Neapolitan soldier had left
Palermo. Two days later the Thousand of Garibaldi were on the way to
deliver Messina, the last hold of the Bourbons in Sicily.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_The Red Man’s Last Victory_:
The Fight of the Little Big Horn
_By Angus Evan Abbott_]
The Red man has fought his last great fight. The long and bloody
struggle waged between the White man and the Red for the possession
of the North American continent has ended, and ended for all time:
the weaker has gone to the wall. From the day in 1609 when Samuel
de Champlain and his hardy followers burst upon the Iroquois at
Ticonderoga, and, armed with sticks that spoke with fire and spat out
unseen death he put these hitherto invincible warriors to flight,
to the day when the United States were preparing to celebrate with
unheard-of splendour the centennial of their independence, a ceaseless
state of war existed between the children of the forest and prairie and
the pale-faced usurpers. Every year had its tragedy, every mile its
white gravestone in history. And as a fit ending to these centuries of
conflict and bloodshed came the crimson tragedy of the blotting-out of
Custer and his cavalrymen in the Bad Lands of the Yellowstone. Many
notable tragedies, dramatic in execution as appalling in effect, marked
the long years, but none struck home to the hearts of the American
people with such searching directness and force as the finale to the
Indian tragedy, in which Sitting Bull, chief of the Sioux, and General
Custer, one of America’s most dashing cavalry leaders, played the
leading _rôles_.
Surely never were such Aborigines as the North American Indian! Surely
never in the history of the world did the White man encounter so
nearly his match as when he first plunged into the forests of the New
World. A mere handful in numbers were these Red men at the best, and
yet it can hardly be said that they were ever subdued. In turn they
met and fought the Spaniard, then in all his glory, the Frenchman, the
Englishman--long and savage wars these--and when Spaniard, Frenchman,
and Englishman as such disappeared and the American took their place,
the Indian fought him more fiercely than ever. When one thinks of the
White man’s countless numbers and the weapons which his ingenuity and
handicraft supplied, the marvel is that the Indian has not long since
disappeared from the face of the earth. But given their numbers and
weapons and all, it has been estimated that in the wars which the
White man waged against the Indians they lost more than ten killed
to the Redskin’s one. Yet notwithstanding the skill, the craftiness,
the sensible recognition of existing facts, the clever stratagem
and resistless ferocity which characterises the Indian nature, the
level-headed way in which he set about his wars, to kill and not be
killed his motto: notwithstanding all this, the prophecy of the great
orator Red Jacket has come true. He said, “When I am gone and my
warnings are no longer heeded, the craft and avarice of the White man
will prevail. My heart fails me when I think of my people so soon to be
scattered and forgotten.”
The feud which began on the Atlantic coast hundreds of years before,
was destined to end in the far North-West, away up in a corner of the
United States then almost wholly unknown to the White man, an angle
of territory bounded on the west by the Rockies, and on the north
by what formerly was known as Rupert’s Land--British territory. The
immediate cause of the trouble which led up to the massacre of Custer
and his battalion was one which had often before provoked active
hostilities. It was the refusal of sundry bands of Indians to settle
down on the reservations placed at the disposal of the Indians by the
United States Government. The Indians resented the attempt to confine
them to restricted districts. The Red man of the prairie had been,
from time immemorial, a notorious nomad. On his lean, shaggy, ungainly
pony, his bow and quiver slung across his back, his buckskin breeches
and shirt fringed with horsehair and painted in gaudy colours, his
long, greasy black hair stuck full of the feathers of the turkey, hawk
and eagle, he had for centuries roamed the vast prairie at will: now
fighting his hereditary foe, and again camping for weeks at a time on
the trail of the mighty herds of buffalo in their wanderings over the
boundless prairie. For ages the chafings of restriction were unknown to
him, until freedom had become almost as necessary to the savage of the
plains as the air itself. This he enjoyed, until one day the advance
guard of civilisation, a grizzly trapper, dressed in leather, and
carrying a flintlock under his arm, peered out of the bushes and saw
in astonishment the great rolling prairie, the home of the buffalo and
the Sioux. The hardy pioneer soon followed, restless, and ever pressing
westward; and one day, the Sioux, sitting astride his barebacked pony,
saw in amazement the long train of white-topped waggons--the prairie
schooner--drawn by oxen, trailing westward through the tall grass,
and realised that his ancient fastness had been invaded. Immediately
there began massacres on the one hand and retaliation on the other. The
Sioux, the Bedouins of the prairie, were gradually driven back and back
in the process. They strained fiercely at the bonds, but were unable to
break them.
[Illustration: “UNTIL ONE DAY A GRIZZLY TRAPPER PEERED OUT OF
THE BUSHES.”]
During the winter of 1875–6 the authorities at Washington, after every
peaceable means had been tried in vain, found it necessary to sanction
the use of force to compel certain refractory bands of Indians to cease
their wanderings and outrage, to place themselves under the control of
the Indian officials, and to settle on the reservations set aside for
their use. These recalcitrant savages were Sioux, than whom there were
none more warlike and cruel, and in their raids they wandered over an
area of something like 100,000 square miles in the then territories
of Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. There were a number of these bands
of “Hostiles,” each having a chief of its own; but as dissatisfaction
spread among them, all gradually centred around two great chiefs,
“Sitting Bull” and “Crazy Horse.” “Sitting Bull,” at the time
hostilities commenced, was with his band in the vicinity of the Little
Missouri River in Dakota, and “Crazy Horse” and band were camped on
the banks of the Powder River in Wyoming. The region was a wilderness:
rugged, mountainous, and deeply scarred by rapid streams and small
rivers, and, as has been told, totally unknown to the United States
soldiers. As guides to this unfamiliar region and to scout by the way,
the command took with it Ree Indians under “Bloody Knife” Chief, and
Crows, led by Chief “Half-Yellow Face.” These Indians did the scouting
well, but the Rees took the earliest opportunity afforded them to slip
away when fighting began.
[Illustration: “AND THE SIOUX SAW IN AMAZEMENT THE LONG TRAIN
OF WHITE-TOPPED WAGGONS.”]
The first move made against these Sioux was on March 1st, 1876. General
Sheridan, a distinguished leader in the American Civil War, was given
the direction of the campaign, with headquarters at Chicago. General
Terry held the active command of the troops in the disaffected country.
Subordinate to Terry were Generals Custer and Crook, at the head of
mounted columns. Terry ordered these leaders to move out against the
“Hostiles,” specifying the route each was to take. Crook marched on
March 1st, and on March 17th encountered “Crazy Horse” and his braves,
and the command was so severely handled in the engagement that Crook
fell back to his base. Custer had been unable to make a simultaneous
advance with Crook, owing to the weather being so bad that it was found
impossible to venture into the region of heavy snows and swollen rivers.
[Illustration: “THE WARRIORS DANCED THE WAR-DANCE.”]