2-995-994 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Revolution in Sicily - discovery of a train leading to the powder magazine at the fort of Melazzo - from a sketch by T. Nast, 1860. View of '...the discovery by Garibaldi's followers of the gunpowder train, and of the fact of the cannon being spiked...As usual, says a correspondent, the Neapolitans would not leave without behaving as is their wont. They spiked eighteen of the guns they had to leave behind, besides which they laid a train to blow up the powder magazine; the thing was cunningly concealed under a lot of hay and straw out of which the fusees peeped. All around loose powder was strewn so as to facilitate the process of explosion. It was discovered by chance, one of the soldiers having remarked the loose powder, which led to further researches. There were as usual excuses, accident and carelessness getting all the credit, while the pretence was that only those guns had been spiked which could bear on the shipping, and which might be used to molest the departure of the frigates with the troops. The second excuse was just as untrue as the first, for eight of the spiked guns pointed towards the land side'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.