Volturno. Early morning. Garibaldi finds himself with more men than he’d ever had before: 20,000 with several cannons. Many are volunteers from the north, while many Sicilians consider their mission complete once they’ve passed the Strait of Messina. Finally, the conscription in the rest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies has proven a mixed failure: for example, in Naples, where Garibaldi was greeted by a jubilant crowd, there are only 80 volunteers. On the Volturno, Garibaldi deploys the Pole Milbitz with 3,000 men on the left, at Santa Maria; Medici with 4,000 men at Sant’Angelo in Formis on Mount Tifata; Sacchi at San Leucio with 1,800; and finally Bixio with more than 5,000 at Ponti della Valle on the right. In Caserta, there are also 5,600 reserve men, under the command of the Hungarian Turr. The Bourbons deployed 3,000 mercenaries and 5,000 Neapolitans on Garibaldi’s left, and 20,000 men were arriving from Capua on the right.
