'THE THOUSAND'- THE VOLUNTEERS UNDER GARIBALDI IN SICILY (1860)
...“Do you want to know with whom, besides foreigners, a child, and a woman, Garibaldi is going to conquer Sicily?” Goffredo lit a match and looked at the final counts on the register. “There are a hundred and fifty attorneys, a hundred doctors, twenty pharmacists, fifty engineers, sixty landowners, and about five hundred artisans or ex-shopkeepers…oh, and five barbers as well.”
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...Hearing horses,
he glanced over the
side retaining wall of the portico to the sea road below. Two
horses and two
riders. He squinted at them discerningly. A long grey beard
and white poncho?
The General? In person. And with an aide. Sandor woke the
other two.
They called and waved from the wall and Garibaldi glanced up. “Garibaldini!". The reached him while he was dismounting, his horse's reins in the hands of his aide, a narrow-eyed Sicilian able to guide him around the city. "You see, Rosario?" he said, "I always find an Hungarian where I need one." |
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...We were shut up in our grief when our dinner guests—whom Nonna had asked to come that day—arrived shortly before noon. Doctor Calcinardi entered, wearing a red shirt of the sort we recognized. What we didn’t know was that he had been on the Expedition of the Thousand with Nonna and Nonno. Then Laura and Josef showed up. Laura wasn’t crying; rather, she looked happy as she went in to see Nonna lying composed on her bed. When she came back out, she gave us a hug. ‘Eleonora wanted to die last night,’ Laura said. ‘She had no desire to see the 20th century.’ |
THE GARIBALDINI
We know almost everything about the
volunteers on Garibaldi’s first Expedition of the Thousand but very little
about those on the expeditions that followed.
Yet those expeditions were important, for they brought him fresh troops
and supplies in the aftermath of his initial, successful battles in Sicily. And
if we know little about his Italian volunteers, we know practically nothing
about the foreigners from all corners of the world who joined their ranks.
To think that there were not one or two but 21 subsequent expeditions. And that the number of volunteers fighting under Garibaldi swelled from an initial 1,000 to more than 35,000.
Who were they?
Researchers at the Italian National Archives in Turin have organized a project, entitled “Looking for the Lost Garibaldini,” with the purpose of pinning them down—giving them an identity and a providence. The data on hand is minimal; sometimes it’s not more than a name, a hometown, and a shoe size.
Garibaldi and his cause were what united them, and afterwards they went their separate ways. Hard as it might be to believe, there were Garibaldi volunteers who found themselves fighting against other Garibaldi volunteers just one year later in the American Civil War.
We would love it if our novel and website could contribute to shedding a bit of light on their identity and life stories. And with the help of our readers we would like to find and share this information.
For now all we know from records is that there were:
95 Hungarians
88 Swissmen
39 Englishmen
24 Frenchmen
15 Americans…
To think that there were not one or two but 21 subsequent expeditions. And that the number of volunteers fighting under Garibaldi swelled from an initial 1,000 to more than 35,000.
Who were they?
Researchers at the Italian National Archives in Turin have organized a project, entitled “Looking for the Lost Garibaldini,” with the purpose of pinning them down—giving them an identity and a providence. The data on hand is minimal; sometimes it’s not more than a name, a hometown, and a shoe size.
Garibaldi and his cause were what united them, and afterwards they went their separate ways. Hard as it might be to believe, there were Garibaldi volunteers who found themselves fighting against other Garibaldi volunteers just one year later in the American Civil War.
We would love it if our novel and website could contribute to shedding a bit of light on their identity and life stories. And with the help of our readers we would like to find and share this information.
For now all we know from records is that there were:
95 Hungarians
88 Swissmen
39 Englishmen
24 Frenchmen
15 Americans…
FAMOUS GARIBALDINI AND SUPPORTERS
A German-born American caricaturist and political cartoonist
Thomas Nast
creator of the political symbol of the elephant for the USA Republican Party.
Thomas Nast
creator of the political symbol of the elephant for the USA Republican Party.
A Hungarian canal engineer
István Türr
István Türr
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A Confederate Hero
Chatham Roberdeau Wheat 
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A French writer
Alexander Dumas, père
A Russian chemist
Dmitrij Ivanovič Mendeleev
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The Russian geographer Lev Il'ič Mečnikov wearing Samurai clothes
| lev_iljic_mecnikov.pdf |