The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-16 00:00:00

let them depart in peace on laying down their arms, '
lest they should have created a dearth of pro-
visions as prisoners. They are supposed to have
lost 400 or 500 killed, and wounded in proportion,
and there are 1,600 prisoners.
I must now send you, to compare with this ac-
count, some passages from a narrative of a Gari-
baldian combatant in the action, calling himself
Carlo Cacciani, which appears in the Nazione. It
corroborates the above account in all the main
particulars, which is noteworthy, being from a
writer of very different politics and calibre.
. . . "In consequence of advices received
from Florence, orders were given in the night that
all our various columns should rendezvous at 11.30
next day on the road leading to Mentana. Accord-
ingly, at midday on the 3rd, the various columns
were in motion for that place, with our three bat-
talions of Genoese Bersaglieri at their head. . .
The commander of the battalion confided to me
the charge of regulating the service of the van-
guard. . . . We had got within a kilometre
and a half of the village without scent of an ene-
my. . . . I pursued my way boldly, therefore,
and occupied every bit of rising ground on our
passage. . . . But this security was not to last
long ; for, having climbed a hillock somewhat
higher than the others, I found myself the object of
a volley of shot. I returned in something quicker
than baste to the level road, and posted the best
shots under my command in various positions
calculated to obtain observation of the enemy's
movements, and to offer resistance in case of attack ;
but, in my doubt whether the volley had not been
fired by mistake from some of our advanced posts,
I determined to make one more investigation before
I gave the alarm to the column. Accordingly, I
sallied further:on in company with an officer of our
company, and holding my revolver in my hand.
Before we had advanced 200 metres, keeping our-
selves well under the cover afforded by the nature of
the soil, we soon convinced ourselves that the enemy
was advancing slowly upon us, protected by a
line of Zouaves drawn out Bersaglieri fashion.
We now lost no time in returning to our vanguard
to acquaint the commander of our battalion with
our discovery. I sent a guide on horseback to
him in all haste, with injunctions to beg a rein-
forcement of two companies to assist in holding the
position committed to me, a most important one.
But the said guide did more harm than good, for
he first wore out his horse by tearing along at a
furious gallop, and then contrived to get himself
into such a state of agitation and excitement, that
he filled all the:surrounding volunteers with panic,
thinking some fearful reverse must have befallen
us ; and the end of it was, he never made my
request for reinforcements understood at all."
[Doubtless the said " guide " was some faithful
peasant subject of the Pope, who was doing his
little best to damage the invaders of his country.]
"Finding it impossible to hold out with the small
force at my disposal, I again sent to beg reinforce-
ment, but every man of the army had his hands
full by that time. . . . Those who had good
legs and stout arms cut themselves a passage through
the ranks;of the enemy ; the rest fell upon the spot
or were taken prisoners. Meantime the battle had
assumed vaster proportions, and our men, in order
not to be taken in flank, had to fall back on Men-
tana, but not without disputing every scrap of
cover by the way. As battalion after battalion of
the enemy came up, they at once threw themselves
into line, and you may well believe that at every
fresh arrival the struggle grew frightfully more
fierce, till the ground was list to view under the
bodies of the dying and the dead. . . . I have
nothing to say against the conduct of our leaders,
for the greater number fell where the danger was
greatest. . . . But the losses we had suffered
in killed and wounded, as well as in defections
from the ranks, and a multitude of other causes,
contributed to prostrate the strength and courage
of the volunteers, and so hour:by hour their ardour
went out, and by night all was lost. The retreat
was not carried out in the best possible order, it
must be confessed ; but by seven o'clock all the
forces that could be called together had re-entered
Monte Rotondo. At first it had been intended to
enter into new measures for its defence ; but, by
Garibaldi's express order this, was given up, and
the evacuation commenced next morning. Our
losses are very great—l should calculate not less
than 1,000, between killed, wounded, and prison-
ers.'

On the Roman side nearly 250 men were put
hors de combat, among them five Pontifical and
four French officers. The large proportion which
the Zouaves bear of this loss is to be explained by
the impetuosity with which these brave but impru-
dent soldiers throw themselves upon the enemy
without thinking of cover for themselves.
There have been many instances of Christian
courage which deserve to be put on record. Thus
a Peruvian Zouave, Sevilla by name, who received
five wounds, coolly made the sign of the cross on
each, saying, " Viva Gesil ! viva Maria !" Another
Zouave had, at the beginning of the battle, made
a vow to cat nothing till he had communicated ;
and as he could not receive communion till the next
day, and that in the afternoon, he continued all
that time cheerfully without food. A Roman
trumpeter, who bad his right hand shot through,
continued through the action to hold the trumpet
with the left.

The wounded Pontificals and French have been
brought into Rome, overflowing the military hos-
pital of San Spirito, and other hospitals also.
Numbers of Romans sent their carriages out to
fetch them, and have even taken them into their
own houses to nurse.

Amid all their pain the same spirit of cheerful
devotion continues to prevail, and as one passes
from one sufferer to another, the words one hears
from each sound like the voices of the early mar-
tyrs of the faith rather than those of the nineteenth
century soldiers ; the same breathings of enthu-
siastic love of God and ardent desire to be spent
in His cause uttered in the various idioms of every
Christian country. There lie side by side one
from Nantes and one from Madrid, wounded by
a splinter from the same shell. Neither will pro-
bably ever see his home again, or should we inot
rather say they will both go together to their new
true home. A young Swiss is next who knows no
rest night or day but while some ministering hand
drops the snow upon his wound, and as we are
busied with him, his opposite companion, hearing
our English name, writes his own on a slip of paper
with his left hand, for he has a ball in his right
elbow, and sends it across to us, begging us to
let him have an English book tomorrow. He
comes from a far-off colony. He is not at the
worst yet. To-morrow he will have the fever,
poor fellow, and will be in no condition to read;
but he is so cheery now, you would think he had
hardly a scratch. The Garibaldian wounded are
also being attended to in convents by Italian and
French surgeons.

On Wednesday the victorious companies marched
back into Rome. The hour of their arrival had
been announced in the papers, and Rome accord-
ingly turned out to meet them at the gutes. • Rome
has, of late, amid all these distractions, been look-
ing her loveliest ; a slight tramontana glazing her
pure atmosphere, and bringing out every countless
variety of tint of purples on the mountains, and
madders on the ruins, and greens upon the grass
and trees, each with a separate value, like a vast
world all of jewels, and her own sun shining
through their transparency, and surrounding them
with a golden setting as it never shines out of
Rome. Every one who has seen the country round
Porta Pia on such a day can represent it to himself
as it was on Wednesday, for it is a vision of beauty
which cannot be forgotten ; but the spirit-stirring
scene which followed no one can imagine. A few
more English have arrived since last week ; but I
regretted there were so few of them to witness it, as
such demonstrations can hardly occur many times
in a lifetime. The following is the dry list of the
order of march :—First, the staff of generals of the
two armies, and the superior officers of the different
corps, took their stand on the Piazza di Termini
to see the troops defile. Then marched past, by
way of vanguard, a company of Zouaves, a divi-
sion of Roman Artillery, two battalions of Zouaves,
a battalion of Carabinieri esteri, a battalion of the
Roman Legion, a battery of Artillery, followed by