Garibaldi, Joseph (1807-1882), an Italian patriot. Garibaldi was the son of a Nice sea captain, and liked the water better than he did his school. He took to a seafaring life early, and saw something of the Mediterranean world. Garibaldi became a member of a secret revolutionary society that aimed to free Italy from foreign domination, and was forced to flee the country. From Italy he went indirectly to Brazil and took a hand in the broils of South America, espousing the cause of Uruguay against her larger neighbors. When the revolutionary times of 1848 came on Garibaldi returned to Italy, and fought bravely against the French and Austrians but was driven from Rome as a fugitive, and was obliged to flee again, this time by way of Gibraltar and Algeria to New York. In 1859 he returned to Italy, entered the service of Victor Emmanuel, and was an active leader in the wars for the unification of Italy. During the Franco-Prussian War Garibaldi entered the French army and sat in the French Assembly. Few men have held more tenaciously to a fixed idea throughout a long, tumultuous life. Whether sailing the Mediterranean on his father's ship, conspiring with the young men of Genoa, fighting the battles of Uruguay, raising cattle on the Pampas, defending the barricades of Rome, fleeing from peasant hut to hut in Italy, leaving his dying wife to be buried by strangers, making candles in New York City, commanding a merchantman on the Atlantic, or leading his red-coated soldiers on the slopes of Sardinia, - whether dining with an English lord and resting in fine linen or eating a sausage with a sailor in a back alley, he was at all times the same simple, rugged, unselfish, incorruptible, fearless Joseph Garibaldi, - the friend of the people, a man with one idea, - the freedom and liberty of the Italian people. When his work was all done, refusing honors, office, and emolument, Garibaldi retired in a dignified manner to the island of Caprera and ended his days - thus fulfilling his lifelong ambition - under the blue skies of a free and independent Italy. The list of emperors and generals connected with Rome and the peninsula of Italy is already much too long for remembrance, but the student of history cannot afford to overlook the name of Garibaldi.