Recapture of Laguna

Colonel José Fernandes dos Santos Pereira commanded the Imperial troops on land, while the Republican defenders, 1,200 men strong, awaited them. On Laguna's southern shore, Giuseppe Garibaldi commanded three schooners, the Rio Pardo, Caçapava and Itaparica, a gunboat, the Lagunense, and a launch, the Santana; there also were 9 guns at a coastal fort protecting the harbor's entrance. Soon after the battle began on sea, when Imperial commander Frederico Mariath attacked through the southern shore, Canabarro ordered a withdrawal on land, seeing that his men were hopelessly outnumbered.^[4]

The Imperial naval force was composed of five gunboats, four launches, two pataches, the São José and the Desterro, two brigs, the Eolo and the Cometa, a schooner, the Bela Americana, totaling 31 guns to the republican flotilla's 10.^[4][5]

After three hours of fighting, the Republicans who had stood had been soundly defeated, and those who had survived attempted to flee towards Rio Grande do Sul, where the Riograndense Republic still stood.^[6]

Garibaldi described the battle thus: "The battle was terrible and more deadly that one could believe. We did not lose too many men because most of the garrison was on land; but, however, of the six officers in three ships I was the only one who survived. All of our guns were disabled; but after this happened we kept fighting with rifles and did not stop firing while the enemy passed ahead of us. It was truly a butchery of human meat; one would step over torsos separated from their heads; on each step one tripped over random body parts. The Itaparica's commander, João Henrique, of Laguna, found himself lying down, amidst two thirds of his crew, with a bullet that made a hole in the middle of his chest, wide enough for an arm to go through. Poor John Griggs had his body cut in half by a shell, taken from close range."^[2][a]