The movement was unobserved by the enemy, who were fully occupied in their attempts to capture the abbey; and it was not until the two companies were established on a ridge well above that occupied by the Neapolitans, and opened a heavy musketry fire, aided by their two guns, that the latter were aware that they had been taken in rear. Their position was altogether untenable, as they were unable to reply effectively to the fire of their opponents, and, descending the slopes, they joined their comrades in the village. Several desperate attacks were made upon the abbey, but each was repulsed with heavy loss; and as the carbineers had now moved lower down, and their guns commanded the village, the Neapolitans lost heart and fell back.
A battalion of Garibaldi’s bersaglieri now came up. They were commanded by Colonel Wyndham, and occupied the village as the Neapolitans fell back, quickened their retreat, and then, descending to the four-gun battery that had first been taken, turned the guns, which the enemy had forgotten to spike, upon them.
In the meantime the fighting had been fierce round Santa Maria. At first the Garibaldians had been hard pressed, and the Neapolitans had carried all before them, until they came under the fire of the batteries placed on the railway and in front of the gate facing Capua. These were well served, and although the assailants several times advanced with both cavalry and infantry, they never succeeded in getting within a hundred yards of the guns. The left wing, however, swept round the town, and captured all the out-buildings, except a farmhouse, which was gallantly defended by a company of Frenchmen.
On the right the Neapolitans fared still more badly, for when their attack upon the battery failed, the Garibaldian force at San Tamaro, nearly three thousand five hundred strong, advanced and took them in flank, and drove them back with heavy loss. By eight o’clock the attack had ceased all along the line; but as the enemy, while falling back, preserved good order, no attempt was made to follow them.
The battle had lasted four hours, and the Garibaldians were now strengthened by the arrival of a brigade with four guns from Caserta, where the news had just arrived that Bixio was confident of being able to hold his ground at Madalone. Two of the newly-arrived regiments were ordered to endeavour to reopen communications with Sant’Angelo, and fighting went on with the force still threatening Santa Maria; these, after suffering heavy loss, the Garibaldians, at ten o’clock, drove some distance back, and captured three guns and many prisoners.
At eleven a fresh attack was made, Count Trani, one of the King’s brothers, having brought some fresh battalions from the town. This attack was also repulsed, the Garibaldians maintaining their strong positions. But the Neapolitan troops were still full of spirit, and at a quarter-past one made another determined effort: their field batteries advanced within three hundred yards of the town, and their cavalry charged almost up to the railway battery, but were received with so heavy an infantry fire by the troops protecting the guns, that they were forced to fall back. The infantry, however, pressed on, covered by a storm of fire from their field artillery, while the guns of Capua aided them by firing shell into the town. The Garibaldians serving the guns at the gate and at the railway suffered very heavily, but volunteers from the infantry regiments took their place, although at one time their fire was arrested by the explosion of a magazine which killed many of the men, and dismounted two or three of the guns.
All this time, fighting was going on fiercely round Sant’Angelo. The two regiments that had been sent out from Santa Maria to open communications with the village had been unable to effect their object, the enemy’s force being too strong for them to move far from the town. At eleven o’clock, the Neapolitans being largely reinforced, made a fresh attack on the battery and barricades in front of Sant’Angelo, and an obstinate struggle took place here; but superior force triumphed, and the royal troops again captured the battery, killing or taking prisoners almost the whole of the force that defended it.
Infantry and cavalry then advanced against the village; but the Garibaldians, having their leader among them, fought with extraordinary bravery, and for three hours maintained themselves, as did those in the abbey, although the enemy brought up their cannon and rocket batteries to within a short distance of it. The walls of the abbey were, however, so massive that even the artillery failed to make much impression upon them. Seeing that the assault upon Santa Maria had been repulsed, Garibaldi sallied out with his entire force, retook the houses that had been captured by the enemy, drove them back to the battery, and at last captured this also. Knowing that some of the reserve would soon be up, Garibaldi at half-past two rode out from the rear of Sant’Angelo, and making a wide détour, entered Santa Maria, and at once ordered a general advance. Ebor’s brigade sallied out by the Capua gate, and advanced against the Carthusian convent and cemetery on the Capuan road, while a brigade moved out to endeavour once more to clear the way to Sant’Angelo.
The former attack was successful. A small squadron of Hungarian hussars charged three squadrons of the enemy’s dragoons, defeated them, and captured the two guns that accompanied them. The infantry went on at a run, but it required an hour’s hard fighting to gain possession of the convent and cemetery. By this time five thousand men with thirteen guns had arrived from Caserta, and the advance became general. Medici issued out from Sant’Angelo, and the whole force from Santa Maria advanced, the Neapolitans falling back from all points; and by five o’clock the whole had re-entered Capua, abandoning all their positions outside it, and the Garibaldian sentries were posted along the edge of a wood half a mile from the ramparts. Until the arrival of the five thousand men of the reserve, the Garibaldians had throughout the day, although but nine thousand five hundred strong, maintained themselves successfully against thirty thousand men supported by a powerful artillery.
At Madalone Bixio had routed seven thousand men who had advanced against his position, and had captured four guns. The only reverse sustained was at Castel Morone, which was garrisoned by only two hundred and twenty-seven men of one of Garibaldi’s bersaglieri regiments. They held out for some hours against a Neapolitan column three thousand strong, and then, having expended all their ammunition, were obliged to surrender. The battle of the Volturno cost the Garibaldians one thousand two hundred and eighty killed and wounded, and seven hundred taken prisoners, while the enemy lost about two thousand five hundred killed and wounded, five hundred prisoners, and nine guns. At two o’clock a detachment of Sardinian artillery, which, with a regiment of bersaglieri, had been landed a few days before at Garibaldi’s request, had arrived at Santa Maria, and did good service by taking the places of the gunners who had been almost annihilated by the enemy’s fire. The bersaglieri did not arrive at Caserta till the battle was over. Wearied by the day’s fight, the Garibaldians, as soon as the long work of searching for and bringing in the wounded was over, lay down to sleep.