"All unfurl the same bright banner,
All one army rush to form,
Pious lips shout one hozanna,
With one fire all hearts are warm."
The Banks of Dora.
MEDICI'S EXPEDITIONS FROM PIEDMONT TO AID GARIBALDI —PREPARATIONS, DEPARTURE, VOYAGE, ARRIVAL, ETC. —CAPITULATION OF MESSINA, ETC.—GARIBALDI AT MESSINA—HIS RECEPTION, MANNERS, AND SIMPLE HABITS—DIFFICULTIES IN ARRANGING HIS GOVERNMENT—LETTER FROM VICTOR EMANUEL FORBIDDING HIM TO INVADE NAPLES—GARIBALDI'S REPLY.
Colonel Medici, who had been an officer of Garibaldi in South America, and afterward in Rome and Lombardy, raised and directed several corps of volunteers, who in June enthusiastically enlisted under the country's standard in Piedmont, and hastened to Sicily at different times. The following account of the expedition of the 8th of that month, is abridged from a private letter, written in the form of a journal, by one of the volunteers. It begins on "Thursday, the 14th of June, on board the ship Washington, lying off Cagliari," a small port of Piedmont a little east from Genoa:
"I little thought on Friday night, as I went to Cornigliano to witness the departure of the 1,200 volunteers, in the clipper Charles and Jane, that on the following night we ourselves should be en route to Sicily. Yet so it was. Our intention had been to wait for the third expedition. On the 8th of June came dispatches from Garibaldi, quite different from any previous ones, asking for men; so at 3, P.M., on the 9th, A—— went to Medici, and was at once accepted. I followed, and with the same success. Our rendezvous was for 9, P.M., at Cornigliano. Toward evening we learned from fresh dispatches that the Neapolitan troops had evacuated Palermo; this made us hesitate, as for a thousand and one reasons we should prefer the third expedition: but calculating that if there should be nothing to do in Sicily, we could return, we took a carriage at midnight and drove off to Cornigliano. The gardens of the Villa della Ponsona, where was the rendezvous for the volunteers, were deserted, and we could see the two steamers lying at anchor off Sestri. A little fishing-boat was lying on the shore, so we coaxed the men to push off, and entered; we found it ankle deep in water, and in about ten minutes were climbing up the vessel's side. Medici had furnished us with a letter to the commander, who gave us a first-rate cabin, and told us that we were the first on board. Some delay had been occasioned by the little steamer Oregon jostling against the Washington in coming out of the port of Genoa; but with the exception of smashing the woodwork near the paddle-box, and breaking away a portion of the rails of the upper deck, no great damage was done. For a while we sat on deck, watching the volunteers coming up. Genoa looked more beautiful than ever, the moonlight flooding her marble palaces and spires; and almost the only constellation visible between the fleecy clouds was Cassiopeia, Garibaldi's star, by whose light he wended his way at night-time across the mountains that divide Genoa from Nice, when condemned to death by Charles Albert, in 1834.
"The expedition was composed of—ship Charles and Jane, of Bath (U.S.), left Genoa at midnight, 8th June, in tow of steamer L'Utile, with 1,200 men, under command of Major Corti.
"Steamship Franklin, left Genoa at 10, P.M., 9th June, for Leghorn, to receive on board 800 men, under command of Colonel Malenchini.