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.

by Giuseppe Garibaldi

Banks of Dora.

ACCOUNTS OF THE EXPEDITION FOR SICILY—VOYAGE—TOUCH AT TALAMONE, IN TUSCANY—PROCEED TO MARSALA—LANDING—MARCH —OCCURRENCES ON THE WAY TO PALERMO.

For the following interesting accounts of Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily, its arrival and operations, we copy from some letters published in English papers. Being written on the spot, by intelligent eye-witnesses, they are well adapted to our use:

DEPARTURE OF THE EXPEDITION.

"Garibaldi left the neighborhood of Genoa on the night of the 5th of May. His intention had been to leave the day before, but owing to the non-arrival of one of the steamers singled out for the expedition, he had to defer it to the next day. It is useless to say that the thorny part of the transaction had been arranged beforehand with the owners of the steamers, and that Garibaldi merely consented to take upon himself the responsibility of carrying off the steamers. The captain, engineers and crew had received notice to leave them, the gallant general being himself a good sailor, and having plenty of men of his own to sail and handle the ships. On the 7th a landing took place on the coast of Tuscany, at Talamone, and on the 8th, another, at Orbitello, which detained the expedition the next day. On the evening of the 9th, the expedition set out for the coast of Sicily direct. The Neapolitan government was perfectly well informed, and the fleet was cruising about in all directions except the right one. Little squadrons of two or more steamers had been concentrated in the chief seaport towns of the island, and tried by cruising to keep a cordon round the island. The south and southwesterly coasts were, above all, a point of their attention, for some of their ships reported having seen the expedition going toward Tunis. Two steamers, the Capri and Stromboli, were lying at Marsala, and not two hours before the arrival of the expedition, had gone out for a cruise."

THE LANDING.

"The place for landing had not been fixed beforehand; an inspiration of the moment induced Garibaldi to choose the most frequented part of that side of the island, and his star led him there just in the interval which occurred between the going out and returning of the steamers. Had it not been for this the landing might have failed. One of the steamers struck on a rock just at the entrance of the port, while the other went in as close as possible. The information received, was that there was a garrison of 600 men at Marsala, and the orders had already been given to land a small party and dislodge them from the barracks, when the boats from the shore came off with the news that no one was there. This made the landing easy enough; large barges were brought alongside, and took everything ashore; but when everything was landed, the Neapolitans made their appearance, and began firing to their hearts' content, without doing more than wounding slightly two men.

"The first thing was to cut the telegraph wire, but it was too late to prevent it from transmitting the news of the landing to Palermo. The last two messages were: 'Two steamers in sight making for the port; suspicious, as they carry no flag;' and then: 'The two steamers having hoisted the Sardinian flag, have come in and are landing their men.'"

Another eye-witness, writing from Marsala, May 12th, thus describes the landing:

"The extraordinary event which happened here yesterday which still looks more like a dream than a reality namely, the landing in this harbor of Garibaldi with a band of about 1,500 as fine looking fellows as you can well imagine, from two Sardinian steamers. The landing was effected in gallant style, and with most extraordinary celerity and order, and part of the time under the guns of a Neapolitan frigate and two steamers. One of the Sardinian vessels was run aground and scuttled by themselves in the harbor, and the other was taken outside by the Neapolitans; but after the landing had been fully effected. I believe the brave adventurers did not lose a man—only two or three wounded. We were all in a state of alarm during the firing, as the shot and shell from the frigate went flying about in a most awkward manner—some into the town, some into Woodhouse's stores, some into Wood's baglio (factory), and one actually over our heads here on the baglio terrace, which fell into the sea beyond the Salinella.