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His red-shirted army, daily increasing in numbers, made one of the most wonderful forced flank marches on record, pushing the way along mere goat-tracks over the mountains, and with such rapidity that General Lanzi, the commandant of the royal army in Palermo, was awakened in the middle of the night to hear that the dreaded Garibaldians, whom he supposed to be at least twenty miles away, were actually forcing their way into the city, and driving the soldiers of Bombina before them.
He did so, and, in spite of the Neapolitan fleet being in the Straits to prevent his passage, he crossed in the night and landed at Melita August 20th, and at once commenced the task of driving out the detested Bombina from his kingdom.
During the period between the expulsion of King Bombina from the throne of the two Sicilies by the Garibaldians, and the evacuation of the Eternal City by the French in 1870, a brigand warfare was carried on, if not under the immediate auspices of the Pope and his Cardinals, at least with their secret support and connivance.
For some time during the early spring of 1860, the Sicilians had been in a state of intermittent rebellion against Ferdinand King of Naples Bombina. At the end of April, Garibaldi determined to make a strenuous effort to aid the patriot insurgents, and collected around him several of his old companions in arms, among whom were Nino Brixio, Colonel Turr, the Hungarian, Count Teletri, and Sistari. With these were a number of brave men who had survived the siege of Rome, and the slaughter by General Oudinot's troops. In three days after determining on action, everything was prepared for one of the most daring and hairbreadth expeditions of modern times. Supplies of arms and stores were procured and held ready at different points of the coast near Genoa; several steamers were "arranged for" (it was stated, at the time they were seized); and on the night of Saturday, May 5th, some two thousand stern and resolute volunteers of all classes of society, and all ages from sixteen to sixty, including about two hundred of the best marksmen of the Societ
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