That evening he wrote a long letter, acknowledging that he had been bitterly disappointed, but saying that Signor Forli had found out that some of the prisoners had been sent away to Capua before Garibaldi entered the town, and that he still hoped his father might be among the number. He gave no detail as to these prisoners, for he was anxious not to raise hopes that might not be fulfilled; indeed, he had in all his letters said little on the subject. He knew his mother had refused to allow herself to cherish any hope, and he had written almost entirely of matters concerning the events of the march, the country through which he had travelled, and the scenes in which he had taken a part. He and Signor Forli had at Salerno received long letters from home full of the delight which the news of the discovery and release of the latter had given them. His mother had said:—
“This is a joy indeed, my boy—one that I had never expected, or even hoped for. But do not let yourself anticipate for a moment that because this unlooked-for happiness has been given to us our other dear lost one will similarly be recovered. That my father had been thrown into a Neapolitan prison we never doubted for a moment; and I believed that, should he have survived, Garibaldi’s success would open his prison doors. But it is not so in the case of your father. The evidence is almost overwhelming that he died in the hands of the brigands who carried him off, and nothing short of knowing that he is alive will induce me to abandon the conviction I have all along felt that this was so. I pray you not to indulge in any false hopes, which can but end in bitter disappointment. You will, of course, search until absolutely convinced that he is not in any of the prisons of the country. The search will at least have been useful, for it will remove the last dread which, in spite of myself, I have occasionally felt ever since he has been missing, that he has been wearing his life out in one of these horrible dungeons.”
The next ten days passed slowly. Frank and the other members of the staff had bought fresh horses a few days after the capture of Reggio; and he was now constantly in the saddle, carrying messages between Garibaldi’s headquarters and the army. Garibaldi himself had been distracted by the intrigues going on around him, and had been obliged to go to Sicily. Depretis, who had been appointed head of the government there, was inclined to the annexational policy, which was opposed by Crispi and the other Garibaldians, and the consequence was that an alarming state of affairs existed there. Garibaldi was therefore obliged to hurry over there himself, and having appointed Mordeni, a determined partisan of his own, pro-dictator, and arranged affairs generally, he returned to Naples, where his presence was urgently required.
The Neapolitan army at Capua had been very largely reinforced, and had taken post along the river Volturno. Turr, who was in command of the Garibaldian army, had in consequence, taken up a defensive position at Madelone, Caserta and Aversa, thereby barring any advance on the part of the royal army. The latter’s position was an extremely formidable one: its right rested on Gaeta near the sea, and forty thousand men were massed on the right bank of the Volturno, a river which was here from fifty to a hundred yards in width, their left was at Cajazzo, in the mountains of the Abruzzi, where the inhabitants were favourable to the royal cause.
Capua itself, on the left bank of the river, afforded them a means of moving forward to the attack of the Garibaldians. Three sides of its fortifications were surrounded by the river, which here makes a great loop, and around the town twenty thousand men were massed, one half of whom were in position in front of it. The only bridge across the river was at Capua, but there was a ferry near Caserta. The position was so threatening that Turr, who had under him about seventeen thousand men, pushed a force up to the town of Santa Maria and the heights of Sant’Angelo, both of which points were occupied after a skirmish.
On the 17th, six hundred men were sent off to march far up the river, to cross it, and to throw themselves into the mountains above Cajazzo, which was occupied by two thousand two hundred men with four guns. Garibaldi arrived at Caserta on the night of the 18th, but did not interfere with Turr’s command. In order to attract the attention of the enemy, and keep them from sending reinforcements to Cajazzo, it was arranged that a feint should be made against Capua: two battalions were to advance from Aversa to menace the southwest of that town, six battalions were to advance directly against it from Santa Maria, and Ebor’s brigade was to march to Sant’Angelo, and then to drive the Neapolitans on their left into Capua, and to extend on the right along the hills as far as the road to Cajazzo.