DeRudio
continued to serve in the Seventh Cavalry, and from time to time his name
appeared in the American newspapers that, on the basis of his political past,
questioned the legitimacy of his appointment in the Army.
Despite the furore raised by the editorials,
DeRudio
avoided confrontations with the press. He had fought alongside men of the
stature of Garibaldi and Mazzini; had attempted to assassinate (for political
reasons) the emperor of the French; had escaped from Cayenne, a Papillon ante
litteram; had fought gallantly in the Civil War and had survived the Little
Bighorn. In sum, he had been a protagonist of too many pivotal moments
of
history to be bothered by the sensationalist disclosures and the slanders of
some obscure journalist.
It was the Italian American press that came to his defence against the libels. G.F. Secchi de Casali, director of the New York daily L 'Eco d'Italia, in the issue of March 24, 1881, denounced both the Times and the Evening Post for inciting, as he called it, "a crusade" against Lieutenant Charles DeRudio. While acknowledging the part played by the young man in the conspiracy against. Napoleon III - a part DeRudio had never denied nor tried to cover up - the Italian paper reminded its readers that, had the officer in question been of Anglo-Saxon or Irish descent,
based
on his military record alone by now he would have been promoted general or at
least colonel!
In December 1882, DeRudio was finally promoted Captain of the Seventh Cavalry. After a recruiting tour in New York, in 1886 he reported for duty at Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota, where he met the old enemy of the Seventh, Chief Sitting Bull. DeRudio raised his sabre to crush the freedom of the Sioux - an intrinsic contradiction for someone who had fought for his own country's liberty and for the
emancipation
of blacks - but the Italianofficer, who at the time
was
still serving in the Seventh, did not take part in the December 1890 massacre at
Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where members of the reconstituted Seventh Cavalry
killed over two hundred Minneconjou and Hunkpapa Sioux during the Ghost Dance
disturbances
In 1896, at sixty-four years of age, Old Rudy - as he was known among his Army comrades - retired from active duty and settled in Los Angeles, where in 1904 he was finally promoted to major on the retired list. The following year, Count DeRudio, Major (Ret.) of the legendary Seventh U.S. Cavalry, and his wife Eliza, surrounded by family and friends, celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary: "Golden Day for One of Garibaldi's Men,"
reported
the article in the Los Angeles Sunday Times of
December
10, 1905
DeRudio
never returned to Italy, but he followed with great interest the progress of the
new, unified Kingdom of Italy. And while, at least ideologically, he strongly
opposed the Savoy monarchy, he wished the very best for the beloved country of
his birth. In such a spirit, two
years
before his death Count DeRudio replied to an Italian historian, who had
solicited his recollections of the "old" Orsini affair. In a letter to
Paolo Mastri, DeRudio explained the motivations and relived the events that had
led
to the bloody assassination attempt on Napoleon III.
And he made a historic revelation: shortly before the attack, he had seen
Felice Orsini hand over a bomb to none other than Francesco Crispi, the future
prime minister of the Kingdom of Italy who, at the time, lived exiled in Paris.
DeRudio had no doubts that Crispi, and not Orsini, had thrown the third hand
grenade against the French emperor!
The
Count's "tardy revelations" in the summer of 1908 were condemned as
the product of "a senile mind" by Alessandro Luzio, a leading Italian
historian; by relatives of Francesco Crispi, who had recently passed away; and
by a daughter of Felice Orsini. A strong polemic ensued on the pages of the
Italian press between the old Count and the supporters of his thesis that linked
Crispi to the conspiracy, and the Count's detractors who questioned his
motivations and character. DeRudio's octogenarian sister, Countess Luigia Rudio,
joined in the battle defending her beloved brother.
DeRudio himself, in October 1908, published a long letter in Bologna's noted daily, n Resto del Carlino, in which he replied to his critics.
The
polemic echoed also in France, in the
prestigious Le Figaro, and in the United States. But in the end, after much furore, the opposite fronts stood their ground
and
no definitive answer to the Crispi enigma was found.
The aging patriot, fighter and soldier, with Eliza by his side, calmly awaited his final hour. Count DeRudio died "of acute enteritis" on November 1, All Saints Day, 1910, in the. City of Angels. (How ironic for a self-proclaimed atheist!) His body was cremated in Los Angeles and his ashes were taken by his family to San Francisco for interment in the Presidio National Cemetery, where he rests. His beloved and loyal wife, Eliza Booth, followed him there twelve years later, in 1922. It was the same year Benito Mussolini, il Duce, and his Blackshirts sized power in Italy with their "March on Rome,"
opening
a new and controversial chapter of modem Italian history.
One wonders how Count DeRudio would have reacted to the news.