"Here we make Italy or we die!"

Garibaldi's quiet words pierced the air like a knife. Brandishing his sword, the famous guerilla leader leaped forward, his men in a rush behind him with their bayonets ready. There was a mad clash at the top. Then the enemy broke before the deadly steel of Garibaldi's "riffraff".

Once more the tide was turned. Once more Garibaldi and his men had helped to liberate a segment of the patchwork of little kingdoms and duchies that made up the Italy of the early nineteenth century.

At that time the people of Italy were little better than prisoners of their rulers. The seething current of unrest broke out in one spot, then another. And in almost every case Garibaldi and his volunteers swept in to fight heroically for a free and united nation.

Guiseppi Garibaldi seemed to love fighting for its own sake—what born soldier does not? But he fought only in struggles for freedom, for causes in which he fervently believed. Although he expected his soldiers to share the hardest and wildest life imaginable, he inspired them to follow into new dangers.

In Garibaldi: Father of Modern Italy, Marcia Davenport tells vividly of the desperate struggle of years of guerilla warfare, the relentless determination of a leader dedicated to the cause of freedom, and the adoration of a grateful people.

From the book