on the right bank of the Volturno amounted to 35,000,
with 6000 garrisoning Capua. About 15,000 more formed the reserves and
the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the Volturno was favourable to
the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the left bank gave them a free
passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which is rather wide and very
deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of their opponents. But
the chief reason why there was a serious possibility of the fortunes
of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the _moral_ of these
troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army were here,
including 2500 cavalry. The men were ashamed of the stampede from the
south, and were sincerely anxious to take their revenge. Thus the
Neapolitan plan of a pitched battle and a victorious march on Naples
was by no means foredoomed, on the face of things, to failure.

In Garibaldi's short absence at Palermo, the Southern Army (as he now
called his forces) was left under the command of the Hungarian General
Tuerr, as brave an officer as ever lived, and a fast friend to Italy,
but his merits do not undo the fact that as soon as the Dictator's
back was turned, everything got into a muddle. Pontoon bridges had
been thrown across the river at four points; availing himself of one
of these, Tuerr crossed the Volturno with a view to taking up a
position on the right bank at a place called Caiazzo, a step which, if
attempted at all, ought to have been supported by a very strong force.
On the 19th of September, Caiazzo was actually taken, but on the 21st
the Royalists came out of Capua with 3000 men and defeated with great
loss the thousand or fewer Garibaldians charged with its defence, only
a small number of whom were able to recross the bridges and join their
companions. The saddest part of this adventure was the slaughter of
nearly the whole of the boys' company--lads under fifteen, who had run
away from home or school to fight with Garibaldi. Fight they did for
five mortal hours, with the heroism of veterans or of children. Only
about twenty were left.

When Garibaldi returned from Sicily, this was the first news he heard,
and it was not cheering. The Royalists, who thought they had won
another Waterloo, were in the wildest spirits, and the march on Naples
was talked of in their camp as being as good as accomplished.

Garibaldi's lines were spread in the shape of a semi-circle, of which
the two ends started from Santa Maria on t