Our story begins in 1861. Giuseppi Garibaldi (1807-1882) was the personification of the Risorgimento, Italy’s nationalist liberation movement, and was the most inspirational and beloved hero of mid-19th century Europe. In 1860, with his guerrilla Redshirts, he had conquered Sicily and Naples, giving southern Italy to King Victor Emmanuel II, who in 1861 established the Kingdom of Italy. But not all of Italy was unified. Rome was under French control, and Venice was under Austrian control. Garibaldi was living in temporary retirement on the tiny island of Caprera, off the north coast of Sardinia.
In The North American Review for January 1861, Henry T. Tuckerman, author of Italian travel books, published “Giuseppe Garibaldi,” a glowing tribute to Garibaldi. When the article reached Caprera, Garibaldi asked his friend Augusto Vecchi to write a letter of thanks on his behalf. Vecchi did so and also enclosed his own letter suggesting that the United States invite Garibaldi to aid the Union cause.
Rumors started spreading, and, on June 8, 1861, American Consul to Antwerp James W. Quiggle wrote to Garibaldi: “The papers report that you are going to the United States, to join the army of the North in the conflict of my country. If you do, the name of La Fayette will not surpass yours. … I would thank you to let me know if this is really your intention.”
Garibaldi replied on June 27, 1861: “My dear friend, the news given in the journals that I am going to the United States is not exact…. I would go to America, if I did not find myself occupied in the defense of my country.” Garibaldi added, “Tell me, also, whether this agitation is the emancipation of the negroes or not?”
On July 4, Quiggle replied, “You propound the question whether the present was in the United States is to emancipate the negroes from slavery? I say this is not the intention of the Federal Government…. But if this war be prosecuted with the bitterness with which it has been commenced, I would not be surprised if it result in the extinction of slavery in the United States, no matter what may be the circumstances.”
Quiggle forwarded copies of his correspondence with Garibaldi to Secretary of State William H. Seward, who consulted with President Lincoln. The defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run on July 21 may have encouraged them to seek Garibaldi’s aid. Seward instructed Henry S. Sanford, American Minister at Brussels, to work in conjunction with George Marsh, American Minister to Italy, and to offer Garibaldi “a Major-General’s commission.” Sanford brought in Quiggle, who committed an indiscretion. He wrote to Garibaldi that Sanford was en route to offer Garibaldi “the highest Army Commission which it is in the power of the President to confer.” Not realizing that the highest army commission was in fact the rank of major-general, Garibaldi wrongly assumed that Sanford would offer him the supreme command of the Union army. This misunderstanding, wrote historian Joseph A. Fry, “did much to prejudice Sanford’s efforts in Italy.”
When Sanford had Joseph Artomi, clerk of the American legation at Turin, deliver Sanford’s letter to Garibaldi, Artomi compounded the confusion by telling Garibaldi that Lincoln wished to make him commander-in-chief. Article II, section 2, of the U.S. Constitution provides that the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” shall be the President, so Lincoln could not have made Garibaldi commander-in-chief if he’d wanted to.
Garibaldi at this time wanted King Victor Emmanuel II to authorize him to march on Rome to wrest it from Napoleon III and bring it into the Italian nation. Just as an employee seeking a raise might tell his employer that another company has offered him a higher salary, Garibaldi wrote to Victor Emmanuel that the United States had offered him the command of its armies. Did the king need him in Italy or should he go to America? Garibaldi’s ploy failed. The king gave him permission to go to America.
On September 9, 1861, Sanford visited Garibaldi. He reported the results of the meeting to Seward: “He said that the only way in which he could render service, as he ardently desired to do, to the cause of the United States, was as Commander-in-chief of its forces, that he would only go as such, and with the additional contingent power – to be governed by events – of declaring the abolition of slavery – that he would be of little use without the first, and without the second it would appear like a civil war in which the world at large could have little interest or sympathy.”
This meeting occurred a year before Lincoln was ready to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Sanford’s mission was hopeless, and Garibaldi did not join the Union Army.
U.S. officials were not overly disappointed. As George Marsh wrote to Seward, Garibaldi’s “constitutional independence of character and action, his long habit of exercising uncontrolled and irresponsible authority, the natural and honorable pride which he cannot but feel in reviewing his own splendid career and vast achievements … all these combine to render it difficult if not impossible for him, consistent with due self respect, to accept such military rank and powers as the President can constitutionally and lawfully offer him.” In other words, Garibaldi was not used to taking orders.
In addition, Garibaldi was an idealist and would fight only for a righteous cause. He has never, Marsh wrote, “been ambitious of wielding power or winning laurels in a cause which did not commend itself to him as something more than a question of legal right and government interests, and this the cause of the American government and union, as regarded from his point of view, has thus far failed to do.”
Garibaldi’s fighting for the Union also might have given rise to some problems. John Bigelow, U.S. Consul General in Paris, reported that the U.S. offer to Garibaldi was “regarded as a confession of military incompetence,” and the London Times saw it as “despairing of native genius or enterprise.” In addition, Marsh feared that a command for Garibaldi would arouse jealousy among U.S. officers. U.S. Minister to London Charles Francis Adams perceived Garibaldi’s refusal as a “lucky escape,” because Union officers would have felt “that the introduction of a foreigner to do their work is a lasting discredit to themselves.” Adams saw the U.S. negotiations with Garibaldi as a “strange medley of blunders.”
This is not the end of the story. The next year, during the summer of 1862, Garibaldi and his volunteers moved on Rome, in violation of government orders. The Italian government, not wanting to jeopardize its relations with France, ordered its own troops to fire on Garibaldi and his men. Garibaldi was severely wounded in the foot and was arrested on August 29, 1862.
On September 1, Theodore Canisius, the American consul in Vienna, without authorization from the U.S. government, wrote to Garibaldi suggesting that, in light of the impossibility of his accomplishing “the great patriotic work which you had undertaken in the interest of your beloved country,” he might wish to “offer us your valorous arm in the struggle which we are carrying out for the liberty and unity of our great republic.” Seward fired Canisius for this presumptuousness.
Garibaldi replied to Canisius, “I am a prisoner and severely wounded: in consequence it is impossible for me to dispose of myself. However, I believe that, if I am set at liberty and if my wounds heal … I shall be able to satisfy my desire to serve the great American Republic.”
On October 5, Garibaldi wrote to Marsh that he would like to aid the Union, but the Union must recognize “the principle which animates us – the enfranchisement [i.e., the emancipation] of the slaves, the triumph of universal reason.” Lincoln had issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, so this time Garibaldi’s demand would not have been a problem. But difficulties remained and circumstances had changed.
Historian H. Nelson Gay writes, “there was no intimaer any needtion that the obstacle presented by the general’s determination to accept no post except that of commander-in-chief had been removed. His wound made present military service impossible; his position as prisoner of the Italian government would render negotiations delicate; his action in violation of his government’s orders may not have been perfectly understood in the United States.”
Historian Howard R. Marraro adds: “Garibaldi’s offer was not acted upon favorably, chiefly because, in the meantime, the critical period in the conduct of the Civil War had passed, and also because, by this time, the North had several able army generals who were leading the Union soldiers in the field."
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Thank you Henry. One further observation, readers can find the original article beginning on page 8 of the Spring 2022 issue of The Lincoln Forum Bulletin.
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