Post by dan25 on Feb 16, 2018 19:34:21 GMT
While searching for some information I stumbled upon the following.
If anyone enjoys reading a biography, John Martin's is quite interesting.
The one certainty in any analysis of the bugler, John Martin, is that he was born in Italy. At this point, however, the ambiguities begin. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1873, as often occurred with immigrants in their effort to „fit in‟, he anglicized his name to John Martin. Most scholars and historians assume that his birth name was Giovanni Martini, a seemingly logical conclusion occasionally reinforced by Martin himself. Yet, more recent research conducted in Italy reveals that John Martin was actually named Giovan Crisostimo Martino prior to his arrival in America.
In an effort to determine his true identity, the first logical step would be to establish his actual place of birth. Two distinctly diverse Italian towns concurrently claim him as their native son. Apricale is a tiny picturesque hilltop comune (municipal town or village) located in the far western Italian region of Liguria. Typical of many Italian villages, Apricale is a labyrinth of mostly cobbled roads surrounding the 11th century Castello della Lucertola. Almost 1,000 kilometers away, down the Italian peninsula, lies Sala Consilina, a rugged little town perched on a Campania hillside. It remains the largest town in the Vallo di Diano in southwestern Italy. Although earlier research hinted that Apricale might be Martin‟s place of birth, and despite that town still claiming him as one of their own, there exists sufficient evidence to refute effectively this conclusion. Perhaps part of this confusion stems from a certain Giovanni Battista Martini, who was born in Apricale in 1847; there are others - with the same or similar names - that later fought with Giuseppe Garibaldi during the middle period of the Italian fight for unification. Another aspect for consideration is the poor quality of some parish records, often lost or damaged by flood or fire, rendering them unreadable. U.S. Army enlistment records, completed by Martin prior to his induction, list Sala as his place of birth.
Martin usually claimed he was born on January 28, 1853 in Sala Consilina. Although most biographers accept Sala Consilina as his birthplace, they may have hesitated due to a lack of primary documents substantiating this fact. Another factor likely contributing to their dilemma was Martin‟s own inconsistencies regarding his birth. In 1906, during an interview with the Brooklyn Standard Union on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Little Big Horn, it was reported that Martin was born in Sala Conizalina (sic) in 1847. Two years later, in late October 1908, Martin was interviewed extensively by Walter Mason Camp, well-respected editor and historical researcher, regarding his role at the Little Big Horn. During their meeting, Camps notes that Martin states he was born in Italy in January, 1853. Martin never clarified the birth date contradictions, almost certainly for the reason that it was not relevant to the interviewer at that time. Martin‟s own less than perfect recollection begs the question: Was he inscrutable by choice or default? Speculations abound as to his reasons. One possible explanation may be that, since Martin was an orphan, issues such as birth place, date, and even surname, carried less importance to him. While never forgetting his Italian origins, he may have placed more significance to his current identity as John Martin, American citizen and soldier.
In August 1922, Martin stated he was born in Rome in 1851 while being interviewed by Colonel William A. Graham, a retired Army lawyer and one of the leading Custer scholars of his generation, for an article later published in The Cavalry Journal. This seeming contradiction may be a result of Martin‟s age. Colonel Graham notes in The Cavalry Journal’s July-August 1942 edition that Martin was “…very old and very feeble when I found him deep in the jungle of Brooklyn's Italian quarter [in August 1922]. His memory was as feeble as his body, and it was only after I had made three separate visits, each time reading to him (for he was almost blind) his testimony before the Reno Inquiry, that recollection of that fateful June day of 1876 came back. But when it did come back, it came with a wealth of incident and detail that was surprising. And so I wrote his story, just as he told it to me, and he signed it.”
In 1997, two researchers from Sala Consilina - Professor Giuseppe Colitti and Dr. Michele Esposito - conducted an extensive search for information on Martin‟s birth. Their examination of birth and parish records in both Rome and Sala Consilina failed to produce any males born between 1851 and 1853 with the last name of Martini. Later that year, however, their luck changed when a special register was located in Sala Consilina. This newly discovered register was reserved for children who had been abandoned or neglected. During my research for Italian
birth records, I often found references to a “ruoto dei projetti,” literally translated to “wheel of the project.” Professor Colitti relates that these children were essentially placed or sat on a spoke of a wagon wheel in the hope that a family member might recognize or, perhaps, a stranger would adopt them.
It was in one of these „mixed‟ registers that Colitti and Esposito found a document akin to a birth and baptismal certificate for Martin dated January 28, 1852. From the document, they learned that Martin‟s actual baptismal name was Giovan Crisostimo Martino. The name had been given to him by Sala‟s mayor, Fedele Alliegro, during the baby‟s baptism at the Church of San Nicola. Martin has been found abandoned near the Church of the Annunciation in Sala the previous day, dressed simply in a white cloth and filthy bonnet; he appeared in good condition and was thought to be about a month old. His name and parents unknown, and with the need to baptize him quickly (greatly encouraged in the Roman Catholic Church), Alliegro apparently named the boy after Saint Giovan - or Giovanni - Cristostimo whose Feast Day was celebrated the previous day. The comune of Sala, under Alliegro‟s direction, sent him to a certain Mariantonia di Gregorio (Botta), wife of Francesco Botta. Although orphaned children were often sent to a home in Naples, on this occasion, little Giovan was an exception for reasons unknown.
This information, therefore, would seem to confirm that he was born either in early January, 1852 or possibly late December, 1851. The lack of attention to detail regarding the dates seems more reasonable when considering that, in the culture of rural Italians, actual dates of birth mattered little. A niece to one of Martin‟s great granddaughters, Bessie, confirms that he told the family his birth date was January 1, 1852, and that he was born in Sala. Since his exact date of birth remained essentially unknown to Martin, it allowed him the freedom to provide varying dates in his later years without remorse. For Martin, like the small town Italians of his youth, actual dates remained irrelevant facts. Professor Colitti is convinced that Martino was born in November of 1851 and his surname of Martino reflects this: Italians traditionally celebrate the Feast or San Martino on November 11. The Italian researchers also concluded that the Italian surname Martini would support the claim of Apricale as his birthplace since the name is indigenous to the Liguria region. Consequently, the surname Martino - of Roman origins - would confirm Sala Consilina as Martin‟s town of birth. Generally, Italian surnames ending in „o‟ are more often found in southern Italy, while many surnames ending in „i‟ are found in the northern sections. Matching one‟s place of birth with their surname may seem unreliable, but in mid-19th century Italy, rural Italians were less likely to move far from their place of birth except for possibly immigrating to another country.
Little is know of Giovan Martino during his early years in Sala, although a tantalizing episode has been related by a dedicated Martin/Martino researcher based in Italy, Pasquale Petrocelli. In 1860, as his men marched north to Naples during the legendary Spedizione dei Mille (Expedition of the 1,000), General Giuseppe Garibaldi made a triumphant entrance into Sala. An Italian patriot and devout republican, Garibaldi had assembled a small force of 1,000 men, more commonly known as the Corpo Volontari Italiani (Italian Corps of Volunteers), in Sicily; they started north with the intention of overthrowing the Bourbon Kingdom of Two Sicilies, which was based in Naples. The march - and eventual victory - greatly furthered the movement for Italian unification (commonly acknowledged as the Risorgimento). Already celebrated as a hero in Sicily and other parts of southern Italy, Garibaldi‟s arrival in Sala was obviously a momentous occasion. As the festivities ended, Garibaldi was invited to dine with a leading citizen, Giuseppe De Petrinis.
One can only imagine the excitement felt by 8-year-old Giovanni. The impression left on him by Garibaldi‟s visit remained, enhanced over the next few years by news of Garibaldi‟s victories. By age 14, Martino left Sala to join Garibaldi‟s forces in the north as volunteers from all parts of Italy gathered in the northern towns of Varese, Como and Bergamo. Led by Garibaldi, these men were formed into the Cacciatori delle Alpi (Hunters of the Alps) brigade with the aim of liberating the northern Italian regions of Veneto and Trentino from Austrian rule. Serving as a drummer boy, Martino participated in the Trentino campaign of 1866-67, and possibly the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 (the Italian Army supported the newly declared French Republic). This entire period, however, is difficult to confirm primarily due to the scarcity of documents verifying Martino‟s experiences; much of this information comes from Martino himself.
When Martino was approximately 20 years old, he apparently had returned to Sala Consilina and met his natural father. Poring through Sala‟s Registry of Births, Petrocelli located an appendix dated 1872 listing the names of Sala‟s residents who had emigrated abroad. In this section, he discovered a short transcription relating the event. The Notary of Salerno, Giuseppe Arcieri de Sanza, recorded on October 24, 1872 that 50-year-old peasant named Giuseppe Perrone formally acknowledged Giovan Crisostimo Martino as his son. While it is difficult to speculate what effect this may have had on Giovanni emotionally, he neither adopted Perrone as his surname nor ever mentioned it publicly during his lifetime; he continued to list Francesco and Mariantonia (or Maria) Botta as his parents on each of his of many five-year re-enlistment documents.
In March of 1873, Martino chose to leave Italy, likely hoping to find a better life in America, and boarded the Anchor Line of Glasgow‟s S.S. Tyrian in Naples. Petrocelli notes in his book, John Martin: Un Salese a Little Big Horn, that during this period, most of the shipping companies carrying passengers to America rarely traveled directly from Italy. The large vessels used to cross the Atlantic infrequently sailed into the Mediterranean Sea, preferring to conduct their
business at the Atlantic ports. Brief stops in the ports of Marseilles and Glasgow preceded a nearly month long voyage across the Atlantic. That ship‟s manifest for April 1873 lists Giovanni Martino, a 21-year-old laborer from Italy, as a passenger. Martino, along with a number of other immigrants from Sala, disembarked at Castle Garden (now Castle Clinton) in the Battery Park section of lower Manhattan. This information was confirmed via The Battery Conservancy‟s CastleGarden.org project. As previously mentioned, it was at this time that Giovan Crisostimo Martino anglicized his name to John Martin.
Soon after his arrival, Martino - now Martin - moved to Brooklyn, a New York City borough filled with Italians. His arrival coincided with a severe national recession, also known as the Panic of 1873. Immigrants to America had few employment choices in the late 19th century, and Martin worked a variety of low-paying manual labor jobs. Italians faced many difficulties in their new country, beginning with language. Other broader and more complex issues surfaced as Americans, in general, preferred their immigrants to be of similar ethnic and religious backgrounds. In general, northern Europeans - mostly Protestant and often from Germany and various Scandinavian countries - met less resistance than their darker-skinned counterparts from southern Europe. Although manual labor opportunities existed, work like this only ensured more poverty.
Immigrants looked for alternatives and the U.S. Army opened its arms to recent arrivals in search of employment. Italy, in particular, endured decades of revolutionary activity and intermittent war in the period preceding unification. The almost constant strife produced battle-hardened men anxious to prove their worth and earn a living in their new country. Martino was no different. While passing an Army enlistment center in New York, he was approached by Army recruiter Lieutenant Edward Hunter with promises of a steady job and superior wages. With few options left, he enlisted on June 1, 1874 as a trumpeter and received an assignment to Company H of the U.S. Army‟s Seventh Cavalry. He was not alone, however, and other Italian-Americans serving in the U.S. Army included Charles Camillus DeRudio (born Count Carlo Camillo Di Rudio), John James (Giovanni Casella), Frank Lombardy (Francesco Lombardi), and Felix Vinatieri (Felice Villiet Vinatieri). DeRudio, in fact, was attached to one of Custer‟s battalions, and he survives the battle after a harrowing night hiding in a copse of trees.