were driven back at the bayonet’s point, and their position fell into the hands of the Garibaldians, and was never retaken. It was, however, by Saint Angelo, where Garibaldi was commanding in person, that the most decisive events occurred. The Neapolitan general had come to the same conclusion as Garibaldi, that whoever remained master of Saint Angelo, had gained the day. The Royalists directed their chief efforts upon this point. A tremendous bombardment was opened on this position from the mortars in this fortress; at the same time batteries were brought into action against it. When, as it was supposed, the desired effect had been produced, the Neapolitans advanced in force, and succeeded in carrying this barricade once more. It should be remarked that this was antecedent in order of time to the success of General Türr, and his brave companions in arms, at Santa Maria, so that they could not assist their friends who were so hardly pressed. The Royalist Generals improved their success, and occupied the first houses leading to Saint Angelo. The Garibaldians were so far outnumbered that they began to lose heart, and wavered. Nothing, perhaps, but the presence of Garibaldi himself at this spot could have saved the day. The fight lasted hour after hour. At length, skirmishing lines were formed and thrown out to threaten either flank of the Royalists. Then a body of men were collected behind a house, who ran forward with a rush, and with the bayonet drove the Royalists back. The Royalist positions were carried at about 2 p.m. The chief now moved back upon Santa Maria, to see with his own eyes what was going on there, and to bring up reinforcements.
The Royalists made a last stand, about half a mile from Santa Maria, in a detached barrack lying on the verge of an open space. They had armed the barrack with guns, and had lined the woods with infantry. From this position, too, they were driven. The Garibaldians threw themselves into the woods, and drove the Royalists before them at the bayonet’s point, and pushed them to the very edge of the camps before Capua. By 4 p.m. the victory was decided along the whole line. That evening, Francis II. did not sleep at Naples. The Royalists were 30,000 strong—the Patriots had not half that number in hand.
It is very difficult for an unprofessional reader to acquire a distinct notion of how a battle was fought, from mere narration. A good plan of the ground and careful notation of the position and movements of the bodies of troops engaged, are the almost indispensable conditions of a correct appreciation of the facts. But, in this case, of the battle which was so hotly contested, and so nobly won, the other day, a very slight explanation may perhaps serve to give a rough notion of what took place. Consider Capua as the apex of a triangle—Santa Maria and Saint Angelo as being situated at the other angles. The Royalists moved from the apex upon each of these angles. As they did so, the two corps set in motion were naturally more and more separated from each other, every step they advanced from their base of operations. In the reverse sense, when the Patriots, after successfully resisting the attacks at the two angles, proceeded to drive the enemy before them,—every step they took they drew nearer to each other; until, at last, they were in immediate co-operation. Independently of this simple form of attack, as has been already mentioned, a force was detached upon Maddaloni, with the object—as it has since been stated—of cutting off the retreat of the Garibaldians when they had been crushed at the two points in front. This was done by what military men term a flank movement—a dangerous operation at all times, but peculiarly so in presence of a desperate enemy, and a consummate general, for surely Joseph Garibaldi has now fairly earned that name. There was, however, a technical justification for this step, beyond the mere braggart’s plea which was at first put in. Until the attack at Maddaloni had been repulsed, the Garibaldian reserves were in great measure paralysed at Caserta. Had the Royalist attack upon this point been delivered in greater force, or with a happier event, it might have gone ill with the exhausted corps in front, which were not more than holding their own at the time when the Royalist movement upon Maddaloni ended in discomfiture. The reserves were then liberated, and speedily brought up to the front. The Royalists were routed, and fled back upon Capua in confusion, the Patriots being in attendance upon them, to within half a mile of the fortress itself, when of course further advance was checked by the guns in position. Such seems the history of the battle of the Volturno, which will be understood at a glance by reference to the map.
The loss is said to have been very heavy on both sides; but probably the Garibaldians suffered most, as far as that day was concerned. It was not until the next morning that they reaped tangible fruits of their victory. We must not lose sight of the Royalist detachment, which had been thrown upon Maddaloni on the 1st of October, and which was discomfited about noon of that day. The bulk of the men fled in disorder into the mountains, but were rallied in the night.
In a hollow on the top of one of these mountains, on the night of the first of October, the shattered remains of the column which had been repulsed by General Bixio at Maddaloni gathered together, and talked over the events of the day. Some way, or another, a whisper passed amongst them that the Patriots had been entirely crushed at Santa Maria and Saint Angelo. They had been told in the morning, before they started from the camps before Capua, that the Austrians were already in Naples. Why should they stand shivering there amongst the hills. Information was taken, and a council of war was held, when it appeared, that the only obstacle which separated them from their victorious friends was the obstinacy and perversity of two old Hungarian fire-eating generals who would still hold out at Caserta. The Royalists acting upon this accurate intelligence moved down in the early morning upon Caserta, and contrived to take some houses and a barrack at one end of the town. Garibaldi, who, after the day’s work was over, had retired to seek a few moments’ rest in the house of the parish-priest at Saint Angelo, had been informed that the Royalists had been seen in the hills above Caserta. They