A farm-laborer and cowherd, had joined the Bourbon army, killed a comrade in a brawl, deserted and lived as an outlaw for ten years. He joined the liberal insurgents in 1860 in the hope of an amnesty for his past offences, and subsequently became the most formidable guerrilla chief and leader of men on the Bourbon side.

Bandits, Penguin, 1985, p. 25