Redshirts (Italy) in the context of "Kingdom of Sardinia"

The Expedition of the Thousand (Italian: Spedizione dei Mille) was an event of the unification of Italy that took place in 1860. A corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto al Mare near Genoa and landed in Marsala, Sicily, in order to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled by the Spanish House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. The name of the expedition derives from the initial number of participants, which was around 1,000 people.

The Garibaldians, with the contribution of southern volunteers and reinforcements to the expedition, increased in number, creating the Southern Army. After a campaign of a few months with some victorious battles against the Bourbon army, the Thousand and the newborn southern army managed to conquer the entire Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The expedition was a success and concluded with a plebiscite that brought Naples and Sicily into the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the last territorial conquest before the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861. The Expedition of the Thousand was the only desired action that was jointly decided by the four "Fathers of the Fatherland": Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II, and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, pursuing divergent goals. Mazzini, of republican political belief, wanted to liberate Southern Italy and Rome, while Garibaldi wanted to conquer, in the name of Victor Emmanuel II, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and continue towards Rome to complete the Italian unification, while Cavour wanted to prevent the conquest of Rome to avoid a conflict with his French ally, Napoleon III, who protected the Papal States.

Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi (/ˌɡærɪˈbɑːldi/ GARR-ib-AHL-dee, Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ɡariˈbaldi] ; 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. He contributed to the Unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He is considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland", along with Camillo Benso di Cavour, King Victor Emmanuel II and Giuseppe Mazzini. Garibaldi is also known as the "Hero of the Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe.

Garibaldi was a follower of the Italian nationalist Mazzini and embraced the republican nationalism of the Young Italy movement. He became a supporter of Italian unification under a democratic republican government. However, breaking with Mazzini, he pragmatically allied himself with the monarchist Cavour and Kingdom of Sardinia in the struggle for independence, subordinating his republican ideals to his nationalist ones until Italy was unified. After participating in an uprising in Piedmont, he was sentenced to death, but escaped and sailed to South America, where he spent 14 years in exile, during which he took part in several wars and learned the art of guerrilla warfare. In 1835 he joined the rebels known as the Ragamuffins (farrapos), in the Ragamuffin War in Brazil, and took up their cause of establishing the Riograndense Republic and later the Catarinense Republic. Garibaldi also became involved in the Uruguayan Civil War, raising an Italian force known as Redshirts, and is still celebrated as an important contributor to Uruguay's reconstitution.

The Southern Army (Italian: esercito meridionale) was the force of around 50,000 Italian and foreign volunteers which formed as a result of the Expedition of the Thousand. The name was coined by Giuseppe Garibaldi. Its officers wore red uniforms and so - like the Thousand - the force's rank and file became known as redshirts. It was dissolved before the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy.

The Uruguayan Civil War, also known in Spanish as the Guerra Grande ("Great War"), was a series of armed conflicts between the leaders of Uruguayan independence. While officially the war lasted from 1839 until 1851, it was a part of armed conflicts that started in 1832 and continued until the final military defeat of the Blancos faction in 1904.

Supporters of the two opposing presidents Rivera and Oribe formed two political parties: the Colorado Party and the National Party, both of which received backing and support from foreign sources, including neighboring Empire of Brazil, the Argentine Confederation, Buenos Aires Province as well as European powers, primarily the British Empire and the Kingdom of France, but also a legion of Italian volunteers including Giuseppe Garibaldi. The great diversity of nationalities among the military forces supporting the Colorado Party posed difficulties in arguing for their struggle in terms of a "national liberation"; instead, the Colorado Party side argued that they were defending "humanity" and "civilization" against "tyranny".

Milazzo (Sicilian: Milazzu; Latin: Mylae; Ancient Greek: Μύλαι, romanized: Mýlai) is a municipality (comune) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, Sicily, southern Italy. It is the largest municipality in the Metropolitan City after Messina and Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto. The town has a population of around 31,500 inhabitants.

Founded by the ancient Greeks around 716 BC and part of Magna Graecia and recognised as a Roman civitas since 36 BC, the city was also at the centre of history during the First Punic War (260 BC), and in July 1860 with the arrival of the red shirts in the battle of Milazzo during the Expedition of the Thousand, an event of the unification of Italy.