Dear Readers,
More July jottings with an Italian connection: Actor, Author, Michael Bacarella’s Civil War Book “Lincoln’s Foreign Legion, The 39th New York infantry, The Garibaldi Guard, is a must read this patriotic month of July and throughout the year for Confederate History Buffs with an Italian connection.
Michael Bacarella, a professional actor who attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and Columbia College majoring in motion picture production, animation and television production researched the fighters of the Garibaldi Guard, from English, Italian and French languages sources for over 10 years.
Garibaldi’s hopes to unite all of Italy would simmer until the French ended their occupation of Rome. But as Italy became united, America severed in two when on December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, and other Southern states followed in quick secession in anticipation of the gathering storm, the militia in Louisiana was organized for the defense of New Orleans. In answer to the call, Captain Joseph Santini raised a company of men for the militia.
The call to organize a Garibaldi Legion went out January 19, 1861, and within four days there were one hundred seventy [Italian] names on the roll. The officers had seen combat in Italy and would be a valuable addition to Louisiana’s volunteer force. Louisiana seceded from the Union on January 26. By March, this Southern Garibaldi Legion marched in full uniform for the first time. Its uniform consisted of a dark blue felt hat, turned up on the left side, with red, blue and green feathers and a green cord and tassels, red jacket, black belt, knapsack, and cartridge box, grey zouave breeches and leather leggings.
Its arm was the Minié rifle and sword bayonet. On March 17, 1861 a United Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed by an all-Italian Parliament and King Victor Emmanuel II, its first constitutional monarch. The Kingdom of Sardinia was replaced by the Kingdom of Italy. On April 12, Brigadier General Pierre Beauregard resigned from the Union army after serving only five days as superintendent of West Point, and opened the bombardment of Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, but capitulated on April 14.
The American Civil War was on. Abraham Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers throughout the states. His call was heard throughout Europe. Soldiers from a dozen nations, veterans of the Crimean War and other campaigns, offered a reservoir of battle-ready men for service in the Union and Confederate armies. Hundreds of officers and soldiers from the Sardinian army and Garibaldi Red Shirts sought to volunteer.
The American consulates throughout Italy received hundreds of applications and in person volunteers for enlistment in the army of the United States of America. There was obviously no obstacle to participation by veterans who were already in America. Italians who joined the Union army included media Enrico Fardella, who was commissioned a colonel in the 101st and then in the 85th New York Infantry.
Count Luigi Cesnola became the colonel of the New York Cavalry. On April 27, the Italian-American newspaper, L’Eco d’Italia, informed its readers that “a Legione Italiana was to be formed to defend the Union against the slave States of the South. The Legion was to be under the command of the Italian officers, selected from among the members of the Legion proper. The enlistment office was located at 298 Broadway, New York. Many donated funds to recruit and equip volunteer military units.
Two recruiting offices were set up in the Irving Building at 594 & 596 Broadway, and the headquarters was at 55 Franklin Street, down the road at the corner of Broadway and 22nd Street in the St. Germaine Hotel. Luigi Cesnola set up his own military academy, where for a $100 fee he instructed New Yorkers in the arts of cavalry warfare. Nearly seven hundred men took his training course.
After the Civil War ended in April 1865, Giovanni Samsa, who was one of the first men to enlist in 1861 and was promoted through the ranks to second lieutenant in the Italian company, went west and settled in Reno, Nevada, where he was a member of the local post of the Grand Old Army; he died on Oct. 1, 1900.
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Blessed John Battista Scalabrini was born the third of eight children, to Luigi Scalabrini and his wife Columba on July 8, 1839, in Fino Mornasco, Como, Italy. He is the founder of the Scalabrini Order. The Scalabrinians missionaries of St. Charles, founded in 1887, worked to integrate migrant into their new societies. For many years the Scalabrini Fathers, published Italian American newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. L’Italo-Americano was published by the Scalabrini Fathers for many years, as was Fra Noi of Chicago.
Blessed Scalabrini made one historic trip to the United States and visited the White House shortly after Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became President (1901-1909). By 1901 Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini had been involved in the migrant ministry for 15 years. He had preached and written about the pastoral care of migrants, founded an order of priests to carry out such care, assisted in the foundation of three orders of nuns, and organized travelers’ aid for sailors and migrants.
Pope Leo XIII, who supported Blessed Scalabrini’s initiatives, wanted to see if any good had been done, and planned for Blessed Scalabrini to make a pastoral visit to the mission field, starting with the United States. On July 18, 1901, Scalabrini sailed out of Genoa. He returned to his Diocese of Piacenza more than five months later. In between, he visited New York, New Jersey, New Haven, Conn., Boston, Mass., Providence, R.I., Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, Detroit, Mich. St. Paul, Minn, Kansas City, Mo., Washington D.C. (where he met President Theodore Roosevelt in the White House) and Baltimore, Md.
It was a rugged schedule for a 62-year-old man. While Scalabrini and Father Giacomo Gambera, the Scalabrinian provincial in the United States, were visiting Boston’s Archbishop John J. Williams, on Sept. 6, 1901, in nearby Buffalo, N.Y., an anarchist assassinated President William McKinley. Scalabrini turned several events intended to honor him into marks of respect for McKinley, and led Italians in praying for the president, thus winning much respect himself and his cause. Three years later, Scalabrini made a second pastoral visit, this time to South America.
The trip was more arduous than the one to the United States had been. Scalabrini left Piacenza June 13, 1904 and returned in December. In between, he visited a number of places in Brazil and Argentina. Some of these places were only accessible by ship, which could be rough sailing if there were storms. Others were reached only by daylong rides on horseback over unpaved roads.
The challenge of preserving the Italian faith existed in Brazil as it had in the United States, but the specific problems were different. Some Italian Brazilians lived in isolation in rural areas. Even the Italians living in urban areas lacked social services, so that the poor were also the abandoned. Scalabrinian missionary Giuseppe Marchetti founded an orphanage, named for Christopher Columbus, and his sister Assunta founded the Sisters of Saint Charles to staff the orphanage. Scalabrini became a passionate champion for the welfare of emigrants. Scalabrini offered the same strategy for solving these problems that he had offered in North America.
He encouraged the Italians to preserve their language and culture. This way, they would build up the faith in their new home, enhancing society instead of living separate from it or being a burden to it. Blessed Scalabrini died June 1, 1905 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on Nov. 9, 1997.
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Carlo Collodi introduced the character Pinocchio to the world on July 7, 1881 when the first chapter of a 36-episode series “Storia di un Burattino” was published in “Giornale per Bambini,” an Italian children’s magazine in Rome. Carlo Collodi was the pen name of Carlo Lorenzini (1826-1890) an Italiain journalist turned children’s author. Among his works for young people were an Italian translation of Perrault’s tales (c. 1875) and a series of amusing instructional books, the first of which was titled Giannettino (1876).
But Lorenzini’s most famous work was the history of the mischievous boy puppet Pinocchio. After Lorenzini introduced Pinocchio in the Giornale dei bambini, in July 1881 the serial was published in book form in 1883 and enjoyed immediate success, as did its English translation when it was published in 1892. Most people do not know that Pinocchio was Italian and not the original work of Walt Disney, whose film popularized Pinocchio in the U.S.
The film related Pinocchio’s most exciting and memorable adventures. With the help of a talking Cricket and a good Fairy, Pinocchio learned some of the more difficult lessons of childhood and eventually realized his dream of becoming a real live boy.
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A Pinocchio Coloring Book, text by Carlo Collodi, illustrated by Simon Galkin, is available from New York, Dover Publications for $3.95, so the ‘bambini’ in your life can enjoy the story in this specially adapted version and have fun coloring 27 delightful illustrations of favorite characters and scenes.
The story begins when Geppetto, a childless old woodcarver, fashions a marionette from a chunk of wood. He calls the puppet Pinocchio and begins to think of it as his own son. Unfortunately, Pinocchio is a terrible scamp who is constantly getting himself in hot water, and whose long nose grows even longer when he lies. After many wild, sometimes hair-raising adventures – being threatened with a fiery end by a monstrous puppet master, running off to a land where boys have perpetual fun and never have to go to school, being swallowed by a giant shark, and many more – Pinocchio is reunited with Geppetto and is rewarded by a good fairy with the best gift of all.
Also available “The Adventures of Pinocchio,” soft cover, in an easy-to-read type at $2.50, and Pinocchio stickers at $1.00. Call 1-800-223-3130 Monday thru Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST to order. Note, this 125th anniversary of the publication of Italy’s favorite children’s story was celebrated with fireworks and a 150-ton sand sculpture of Pinocchio at Milwaukee’s Festa Italiana earlier this month, July 16-19, at Milwaukee Lakefront.
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