When his trumpet signalled departure, the lassos
served to catch the horses grazing in the fields, the men fell into
order and marched, none knowing nor caring whither, save to follow their
chief. Councils of war he never held; he ordered, and was implicitly
obeyed. To his original legion were added some of the finest and bravest
of the Lombard volunteers, who had learned his worth "after the
armistice"; while boys from ten to fourteen, who were his pride and
delight, formed his "band of hope."
To-day for an act of courage a man would be raised from the ranks, and,
sword in hand, command his company; but woe to him if he failed in
shouldering a musket or brandishing a bayonet at need. To onlookers this
legion, composed at first of but one thousand men, seemed a wild, unruly
set; but this was not the case. Drunkenness and insubordination were
unknown among the ranks. Woe to a soldier who wronged a civilian. Three
were shot for petty theft during the brief Roman campaign. Still, while
Garibaldi felt within himself his own superiority to those around,
Mazzini, who also felt it, might as well have proposed an Indian chief
to command the Roman Army as this man, whom, in later years, no soldier
in Europe but would have been proud to call _dux_.
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