Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

THE CHOLERA OF 1867. 373
admiration and gratitude which arises from the vague mention
of the work done by the army for the benefit of the country
on that occasion, must be much less deep and lasting, and the
example less efficacious, than it would be when knowing the
manner in which the work was individually accomplished, the
sacrifices which it cost and the perils that accompanied it,
the relation of
which would produce a deep impression upon
the mind, and people thus be able to bestow their admiration
upon deeds of daring, and unite their gratitude with names.
Some of these facts and these names I mean to revive in the
memory of any who have forgotten or never heard them ;
and
I am induced to this not
so much by the thought
of the sweet
and proud sense of satisfaction that I, as citizen and soldier,
shall experience in writing a page so glorious
for the
Italian army, as by the desire which I have to fulfil a duty of
justice by giving light to many virtues, many forgotten
or obscure
sacrifices, and, besides this, by the firm conviction that it
will not be quite a useless task to set forth a splendid example
of
the way in which the man and citizen should behave in the
face of national misfortunes.
Toward the end of 1866, it was hoped in Italy
that the
cholera, which had invaded many provinces that year, would
not return the following season. But on the contrary, as
every one knows, it returned with greater force than before,
and of all the Italian provinces, that which suffered the most
was Sicily, of which I shall write almost exclusively, in order
to carry out
my design in the clearest and most concise manner.
In the months of January and February of '67 the cholera
carried off a few victims in the neighborhood of Girgenti and