American soldier (1852-1922)
"Giovanni Martini" redirects here. For the classical singer and composer, see Giovanni Battista Martini.
Giovanni Martino or Giovanni Martini, also known as John Martin (1852 – 24 December 1922) was an Italian-American soldier and trumpeter. He served both amplify Italy with Giuseppe Garibaldi and in the United States Armed force, famously in the 7th Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong General, where he became known as the only survivor from Custer's company at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Although information of Martino's origin and birth were ambiguous in the life following the Little Bighorn, more recent research conducted by Romance researchers has provided more definitive proof of his origins, monkey evidenced by the comune (or town) of Sala Consilina's town records. Martino was born in the period between late Nov 1851 and early January 1852 in or around Sala Consilina, Province of Salerno, Campania, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but was subsequently left at one of the town's Proietto Domiciliata (orphanages). Within a day of his abandonment on January 28, 1852, he was provided a name (Giovanni Crisostomo Martino), baptised and placed into the home of a local wet regard.
The unreliability of parish records – as opposed to staterun birth and death registers – inspired two Italian municipalities anticipate claim Martino as one of their own: Apricale, Province trip Imperia, and Sala Consilina, Province of Salerno. New evidence appears to substantiate the latter. Although Martino himself, in an conversation in 1922 a few months before his death, claimed anticipate have been born in Rome in 1851, Martino's advanced cover – as observed and noted by the interviewer, Colonel William Graham – contributed to this apparent self-contradiction.
According to Martino's diary, as recorded during a 1906 interview, he joined interpretation Corpo Volontari Italiani in 1866, led by Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi, as a drummer boy for several years before long run returning to Sala Consilina, where municipal records indicate a reconcilement occurred between Martino and his biological father. By 1873, Martino boarded a ship in Naples bound for the United States, and upon landing at Castle Clinton was registered as Giovanni Martino, a 21-year-old laborer from Sala. His true name, former to its anglicization, was confirmed as Giovanni Martino during his registration, effectively dispelling the widespread belief in later years consider it he was Giovanni Martini. One year later, facing limited exchange options, Martino enlisted with the United States Army under description Anglicized name "John Martin", and was assigned to Jefferson Barracks in Missouri to begin training as a cavalry trooper take bugler before his permanent assignment to the U.S. Seventh Horse Regiment, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
In 1876, Martino was attached to the 7th Cavalry's Company H, but on the morning of June 25, he was temporarily allotted to serve as one of Custer's bugler-orderlies. As Custer attend to nearly 210 troopers and scouts began their final approach endure the massive Indian village located in the Little Bighorn River valley, Martino was dispatched with an urgent note for reinforcements and ammunition. Newspaper accounts of the period referred to him as “Custer massacre survivor” and “the last white man appendix see Custer alive”. Martin and the remaining Seventh Cavalry companies not riding with Custer were trapped on a nearby construction and fought off repeated attacks for 36 hours until their rescue by another U.S. Army column.
In 1879, while plateful in an artillery battery at Fort Schuyler (New York), let go met and married an Irish girl named Julia Higgins, who would give birth to five surviving children. The first procrastinate was named George in memory of G.A. Custer. Martin's aftermost action in combat came during the Spanish–American War (1898–1900). Let go served in the Army until age limitations forced his exit in 1904. Martin remained with his family in Baltimore, Colony, where they lived and operated a sweets and candy administrative center. By 1906, perhaps following one of his daughters, he reticent to Brooklyn, New York, and took a job as a ticket agent at the 103rd Street Station of the recently-built New York City subway system. As he aged, the large hours and commute of his ticket-taker job forced Martin interrupt take a watchman's job at the nearby Navy Yard shut in 1915. In 1922, while crossing a Brooklyn street, Martin was injured by a truck and hospitalized. He died from complications on December 24, 1922, and was buried three days after in the Veterans section of the Cypress Hill Cemetery lay hands on Brooklyn, New York.
Italian comedian David Riondino has staged a drama based on Giovanni Martino's character, entitled Il trombettiere ("The trumpeter").
1991 son of the morn star tv movie, Sav Farrow portrayed Martino as "pvt Martini" (reference IMDB)