Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1888-11-28
Garibssldi os y Leader

From the December Atlantic. E.Ss1$ NJ
1t was as popular soldier that Carl
baldi won his fame, and as such he has
had no equal. The forces he captalned
were Insignificant in numbers compared
with the great ornaments of modern
times. His tactics were those Of the.
Rio Grande guerrillas; nevertheless his
success was astonishing because he was
peculiarly adapted to lead revolution
ary uprising like the Italian. From the
mlnuteness with which he describes the
plans of his campaigns and the disposi-.
ton Of his troops in each battle, and
from the copiousness of the military
precepts which he splinkies over his
memoirs, it is evident that he deemed
himself master OF the art Of war; but
the captains of the future will not turn
to him for instruction in tactics or STRAIT
egy. His strength Law in his personal
valor, and in the unbounded confidence
and devotion which he inspired in his
comrades; ana there are qualities with
out which excellence of discipline, or
numbers, or technical skill can win vic
tories. His fayorite dream. that the
Italians could emancipate themselves
without foreign assistance, by rising en-
masse and arming themselves with q
million muskets, was improbable for
two reasons, which he ought to have
understood: first, the peasantry (as he
states many times) were too subservient
to the priests to be easily aroused; and,
second, multitude of raw volunteers
could not have over thrown the trained
armies of Austria. The god of battles
decides for justice and patriotism, pro-
vided they marshal the best regiments.
When we have stripped from Carl
baldl his eccentricities and flaws, tran
sient in their nature, when We Look into
the heart of the man and contemplate
his achievements, we behold hero of
the Homerlc brood. We are again in
the presence of man of few simple
but elemental qualities. brave dislnter-
ested, and outspoken, whose habit it
was to exhibit his passions without that
reserve which belongs to our later, So
phisticated age. Like Achilles, he did
not disguise his feelings; he wept when
he was moved, sulked when he was
angry. He was inspired by two ideals,
and those two the noblest,-love of lib
erty and love of his fellow men; ideals
which he might not cherish in secret,
but which he must proclaim before a
hostile world; ideals for which he en-
dured poverty, exile, fatigues, and the
perils of battle. He believed that in
every man there dwells consciousness
of right which needs only to be quick
ened in order to produce righteous acts.
His career, which typifies in the large
that of thousands of his contemporaries,
cOnfuunds those materialists who assert
that the age of emotions, of high souled
unselfshness, of romance. of true ira
gedy, has been left behind, and that we
have entered the Sahara of egotism and
commonplace. In the history of mod.
ern Europe, which is the history of the
reconstruction of society upon the prin-
ciples of nationality, political equality,
and commercial equity, feudalism hav-
ing crumbled into ruins, there is no
nobler chapter than that in which the
unification of Italy is told. Garibaldl
was the popular hero of that episode.
The race whose heart beat true in Carl:
baldi, and whose head thought wisely
IN Cavour, if its character weakens not.
will contribute generously to the civil