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Next day the castle surrendered, and thus a quantity of valuable war material fell into Garibaldi's hands. His luck had not deserted him. Cosenz and Medici landed their divisions in the night of the 21st of August, near Scilla, in the neighbourhood of which General Briganti had massed his Neapolitans, 7000 strong.
Some further reinforcements were sent to Del Bosco from Messina, though not so numerous as they ought to have been, but they would have almost ensured him the victory had not Medici also received help; Cosenz' column, and, yet more important, Garibaldi himself with the 1000 men he had kept in Palermo, hastening at full speed to the rescue.
He instructed his Neapolitan officer, Cosenz, to form a ministry, and wrote to the Marquis Pallavicini, the prisoner of Spielberg, inviting him to become Pro-Dictator. Had a man of authority like Pallavicini, who also entirely possessed the Dictator's confidence, at once assumed that office, much of the friction which followed might have been spared.
Later, arrived the third and last expedition, consisting of 1500 men under Cosenz, till recently commander-in-chief of the Italian army.
Zorzi was, of course, the small hero of the hour, especially among the women. General Pepe commanded the sortie, with Ulloa, Fontana and Cosenz as his lieutenants; Ugo Bassi, the patriot monk of Bologna, marched at the head of a battalion with the crucifix, the only arms he ever carried, in his hand.
The Dictator hailed his double with the cry of 'Viva Garibaldi, in which Cosenz and the other officers cordially joined. The entry of the Liberator into Salerno was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm, the wonderful beauty of the surroundings seeming a fitting setting for a scene like the vision of some freedom-loving poet.
Having been so successful he now determined, despite the warnings of friendly advisers and the hostility of enemies, to carry his forces from Sicily to the mainland, and take possession of Naples itself. He was at the head of about twenty thousand men under the command of Generals Medici, Bixio, Cosenz, and Turr.
Besides being from its very bulk less manageable than the 'few and good' of 1859, this mass of men was ill-provided with officers who could inspire and keep discipline. Garibaldi's own generals, Bixio, Medici, Cosenz and Sirtori, were now all in the regular army, and therefore not free to join him.
On the 23rd, Briganti found himself attacked on the south and north from Scilla by Cosenz, and from Reggio by Garibaldi.
But they formed a picturesque sight as they marched along gaily to the everlasting song, 'Addio, mia bella, addio'; and a physiognomist would have been struck by their intelligent and often distinguished faces: nobles and poets, budding doctors and lawyers, bristled in the ranks, while the officers were the still young veterans of 1848-1849: Cosenz, hero of Venice; Medici, the defender of the Vascello; Bixio, Sirtori, Cairoli all the Knights of the Legend.
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