Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura
Kościuszko ( ; February 4, 1746 – October 15, 1817) was a
Polish general and Polish-Lithuanian
military leader during the Kościuszko Uprising. He is a national hero in Poland
, Lithuania
, and the United States
and is also treated as a national hero by many people in Belarus
. He led the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising against Imperial Russia
and Kingdom of Prussia
as Supreme Commander of the National Armed Force (Najwyższy Naczelnik Siły Zbrojnej Narodowej).
Prior to commanding the 1794 Uprising, he had fought in the
American Revolutionary
War as a
colonel in the
Continental Army. In 1783, in recognition
of his dedicated service, he had been
brevetted by the
Continental Congress to the rank of
brigadier general and had become a
naturalized citizen of the United States.
There are several Anglicized spellings of Kościuszko's name.
Perhaps the most frequently-occurring is
Thaddeus
Kosciusko, though the full "Andrew Thaddeus Bonaventure
Kosciusko" is also seen. In
Lithuanian, Kościuszko's name is
rendered as
Tadas Kosciuška or
Tadeušas
Kosciuška.
Life
Early Life & Education

Kościuszko's birthplace
Kościuszko
was born in the village of Mereczowszczyzna ( ,
Merachoushchyna), now abandoned, near the present-day town
of Kosava,
Belarus
. The area lay within the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a part of
the
Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth.
Kościuszko was the son of a
local noble
Ludwik Tadeusz Kościuszko and Tekla,
née Ratomska. He was
the youngest child in a family whose lineages are traced to
Lithuanian and
Ruthenian nobility and to a 15th–16th–century
courtier of
Polish King Sigismund I the Old, Konstanty
Fiodorowicz Kostiuszko.
At the time of Tadeusz Kościuszko's birth, the family possessed
modest holdings in the Grand Duchy. His first language may have
been
Belarusian, and he was
christened in both the
Eastern
Orthodox and
Roman Catholic
religions. As a result of the dual baptisms, he bore the names
Andrei and Tadeusz.
In 1765
Poland's King Stanisław August
Poniatowski created at Warsaw
, on the
grounds of present-day Warsaw University
, the Szkoła
Rycerska (School of Knights) to educate military officers and government
officials. Kościuszko enrolled on 18 December 1765, becoming
a member of the
Corps of
Cadets. Since the school emphasized both military subjects and
the
liberal arts, his courses included
world history, the
history of Poland,
philosophy,
Latin, the
Polish,
German and
French
languages, and
law,
economics,
geography,
arithmetic,
geometry and
engineering. Upon graduation, he was promoted to
captain.
France: Art, War, and Enlightenment
In 1769 Kościuszko and his colleague Orłowski were granted a royal
scholarship and on October 5 they set off for Paris. There
Kościuszko briefly studied in the Academy of Fine Arts, but soon
realized that the career of a painter was not what he dreamed of.
As a foreigner he could not apply for any of the French military
academies, and he lacked the funds to study engineering. For five
years, however, Kościuszko educated himself as an extern,
frequenting lectures and the libraries of the Paris military
academies. His exposure to the
Enlightenment there, coupled with the
religious tolerance practiced in the Commonwealth, would have a
strong influence on his later career.
First Return: An Officer Without A Command
By the
First
Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 1772, the
adjoining countries of Russia
, Prussia and Austria annexed large swaths of
Polish-Lithuanian territory and acquired influence over the
internal politics of the reduced Poland and Lithuania. The
Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth was forced to cut back its
Army to 10,000 men, and when Kościuszko finally
returned home in 1774, there was no place for him in the Army. He
took a position as tutor in the family of a provincial governor and
fell in love with his pupil Ludwika Sosnowska. They eloped but were
overtaken by her father's retainers. Kościuszko received a
thrashing at their hands — an event which may have led to his later
antipathy to class distinctions. In autumn of 1775 he decided to
emigrate.
Dresden and Paris: A Revolutionary Is Born
In late
1775 Kościuszko arrived in Dresden
, where he
wanted to join either the Saxon
court or the
elector's army. However, he
was refused and decided to travel back to Paris. There he was
informed of the outbreak of the
American Revolutionary War, in
which the British colonies in North America revolted against the
crown and started the fight for independence. The first American
successes were well publicized in France and the cause of the
revolutionaries was openly supported by the French people, whose
government also supported the Americans.
American Revolution: The Glorious Cause of Liberty
Kościuszko came to
America on his
own, and on August 30, 1776 he presented a
Memorial to
Congress. He initially served as a volunteer, but on October 18,
1776, Congress commissioned him a Colonel of Engineers in the
Continental Army. "He was assigned a black orderly named
Agrippa Hull. At the recommendation of Prince
Adam Kazimierz
Czartoryski and General
Charles Lee, Kościuszko was named head
engineer of the
Continental
Army.
He was
sent to Pennsylvania
to work with the Continental Army. Shortly
after arriving, he read the
United States
Declaration of Independence. Kościuszko was moved by the
document because it encompassed everything in which he believed; he
was so moved, in fact, that he decided to meet
Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of
the Declaration.
The two met in Virginia
a few months later. After spending the day
discussing philosophy and other things they shared in common, they
became very close friends.
Kościuszko was a guest at Monticello
on many occasions, and spent prolonged visits
there.
The War In The North: 1776-1780
Kościuszko's first task in America was the
fortification of Philadelphia
. His first structure was the construction of
Fort
Billingsport
. On September 24, 1776, Kościuszko was
ordered to fortify the banks of the Delaware River against a possible British
crossing. In the spring of 1777 he was
attached to the
Northern Army under Maj.
Gen.
Horatio Gates
where he directed the construction of several forts and fortified
military camps along the Canadian
border.
Subsequently posted at Fort
Ticonderoga
, he worked to restore the defenses of what had once
been one of the most formidable fortresses in North America. His surveys of the
landscape prompted him to strongly recommend the construction of a
battery on Sugar Loaf
Mtn.
overlooking the fort. Though a prudent
suggestion, and one that carried the agreement of Kościuszko's
fellow engineers,
garrison commander
Brigadier Gen. Arthur St. Clair ultimately declined to
carry it out, citing logistical difficulties. This turned out to be
an egregious tactical blunder, as, when the
British Army under General
John Burgoyne arrived in July, he did exactly
what Kościuszko would have done and had his engineers place
artillery on the hill.
With the
British in complete control of the high
ground, the Americans realized their situation was hopeless and
abandoned the fortress with hardly a shot fired in the
battle of Ticonderoga
. The
British
advance force nipped hard on the heels of the outnumbered and
exhausted
Continentals as they fled
southward.
Maj. Gen. Philip
Schuyler, desperate to put distance between his men and their
pursuers, ordered
scorched earth
tactics along the route of retreat.
In his crucial rearguard role, Kościuszko carried out these
orders by directing the felling of trees, damming of streams, and
destruction of all bridges and causeways to deny the British
use of the roadway. Encumbered by their vast
supply train, the
British slowly began
to bog down, giving the Americans the time needed to safely
withdraw across the
Hudson River.
Shortly
thereafter, General Gates relieved
Schuyler, regrouping his forces to
try and prevent the British
from taking Albany
. He
tapped Kościuszko to survey the countryside between the opposing
armies, choose the most defensible position he could, and fortify
it.
Finding just such a position near Saratoga
, overlooking the Hudson
at Bemis
Heights
, Kościuszko proceeded to lay out an excellent array
of defenses; nearly impregnable to attack from any
direction. His excellent judgment and meticulous
attention to every detail in the American defense frustrated the
British
Army
attack during the final battle on October 7th,
1777. Added to the American victory at Freeman's Farm two weeks prior, the
dwindling British
army was dealt a second sound tactical defeat,
turning the tide of the campaign.
The
Americans were then free and able to pursue and bottle up the
tattered remnants of the defeated British
. Having cut off the last means of escape,
Gates accepted General Burgoyne's surrender of his entire expeditionary force at Saratoga
on October 16th, 1777. This complete and
total American victory marked the turning point of the entire
war, sealing the alliance with
France
on February
6th, 1778. Kościuszko's work at Saratoga
received great praise from Gen. Gates, who later told his friend
Dr. Benjamin Rush "...the great tacticians of
the campaign were hills and forests, which a young Polish engineer
was skillful enough to select for my encampment".
Thereafter, Kościuszko was regarded as one of the best engineers in
American service.
George
Washington took immediate notice, tasking him with the command
of improving defensive works at the stronghold in West
Point
. Here he was posted until being granted his
request for transfer to the
Southern Army in August
of 1780.
It was Kościuszko's defenses at West Point
that General Benedict
Arnold attempted to pass to the British
when he turned traitor the following month.
It was later revealed that the original blueprints had been
destroyed before either
Arnold or
Gen.
Washington could get their
hands on them.
The War In The South: 1780-1783
Traveling
southward through rural Virginia
, where he witnessed chattel slavery for the first time up-close and personal, he
eventually reported to his former commander Gen.
Gates in North Carolina
in October. However, following the disastrous defeat
at the Battle of
Camden
on August 16th, Congress selected Washington's choice of Maj. Gen.
Nathanael Greene to replace the
disgraced
Gates as commander of the
Southern Department. When
Gen. Greene
formally assumed command on December 4th, 1780, Kościuszko's
services were retained, employed as
Greene's chief engineer.
In this capacity, he
made substantial contributions towards the planning and execution
of the general's overall strategy that culminated in the reconquest
of the Carolinas & Georgia
two years later.
Over the course of this campaign, he was placed in charge of
constructing
bateaux, siting camps, scouting
river crossings, fortifying positions, and developing intelligence
contacts. Many of his contributions were instrumental in preventing
the destruction of the Southern Army. This was especially true
during the famous "Race to the Dan", where
Cornwallis and his exhausted troops chased
Greene through 200 miles of rough
backcountry terrain in the dead of winter.
Thanks largely to a
combination of Greene's tactics,
and Kościuszko's bateaux and accurate
scouting of the rivers ahead of the main body, the Continentals safely crossed each one in its
path, including the Dan
River
. Cornwallis, having
no boats of his own, and finding no way to cross the swollen
Dan
, finally
gave up the chase and withdrew back into North Carolina
, while the Continentals regrouped south of Halifax, VA
, where Kościuszko had earlier established a
fortified depot at Greene's
request.
During the "Race to the Dan", Kościuszko had contributed to the
selection of the site where Gen.
Greene eventually returned to fight
Cornwallis at
Guilford Courthouse. Though
tactically defeated, the Americans all but destroyed
Cornwallis' army as an effective fighting force
and gained a permanent strategic advantage in the South.
Thus, as
Greene began his reconquest of
South
Carolina
in the
spring of 1781, he recalled Kościuszko from Halifax
to rejoin the main body of the Southern
Army. It wasn't long before he was back in his engineering
element at
Ninety Six where,
from May 22nd - June 18th, he conducted the longest
siege of the
Revolutionary War. Kościuszko suffered his
only wound in seven full years of service during the unsuccessful
siege, as he was
bayonetted in his hindquarters during an
assault by the Star Fort's defenders on the approach
trench he was preparing.
As the
combined forces of the Continentals
and Southern militia gradually forced the
British
from the backcountry into the coastal ports during
the latter half of 1781, Kościuszko began participating in more
direct action. He had already fought in the major battles
at Hobkirk's Hill in April
and Eutaw
Springs
in September. However, he was most
active throughout the final year of hostilities in much smaller
actions focused on harassing British
foraging parties near Charleston
. His only known battlefield command of the
war occurred at James
Island
on November 14th, 1782. In what is believed
by many to be the
Continental
Army's final armed action of the war, he was very nearly killed
as his small force was soundly routed.
A month later, he was
among the first Continental troops
to reoccupy Charleston
following the British
evacuation of the city. Kościuszko spent the
rest of the war there, allegedly conducting a fireworks display to
celebrate news of the signing of the
Treaty of Paris in April of
1783.
Mustering Out: Preparing to Return Home
After seven years of faithful and uninterrupted service to the
American cause, on October 13, 1783, Kościuszko was promoted by
Congress to the rank
of
brigadier general.
He also received
American citizenship, a grant of land near present day Columbus, OH, and was admitted to both the
prestigious Society of the Cincinnati
and the American Philosophical
Society
. When he was leaving America, he wrote a
last will, naming
Thomas Jefferson the executor and leaving
his property in America to be used to buy the freedom of black
slaves, including Jefferson's, and to educate them for independent
life and work. Several years after Kosciuszko's death, Jefferson
pled an inability to act as executor, an action deprecated by the
abolitionist
William Lloyd
Garrison and Jefferson historian
Merrill Peterson. The U.S. Supreme Court
awarded the estate to Kosciuszko's descendants in 1852, ruling that
he had died
intestate despite the four
wills he had made. During the legal proceedings between the date of
his death and the Supreme Court decision, the value of his estate
decreased significantly; this was attributed by a case attorney to
Colonel
George Bomford's use of the
estate for his own purposes. None of the monies Kosciuszko had
earmarked for the
manumission and
education of
African-Americans
were ever used for that purpose.
Commonwealth Again: Back Home In A Troubled Land
In July 1784 Kościuszko set off for Poland, where he arrived on
August 12. He settled in his home village of
Siechnowicze. The property, administered by his
brother-in-law, brought a small but stable income, and Kościuszko
decided to limit the
servitude of his
peasants (
corvée) to two days a
week, while completely exempting female serfs. This move was seen
by local
szlachta (nobility) as a
sign of Kościuszko's dangerous
liberalism.
By that time the internal situation in Poland was changing rapidly.
A strong, if still informal, group of politicians advocated for
reforms and for strengthening the state. Notable political writers
such as
Stanisław Staszic and
Hugo Kołłątaj argued
for granting the serfs and burghers more rights and for
strengthening the central authorities. These ideas were supported
by a large part of the
szlachta,
who also wanted to curb foreign meddling in Poland's internal
affairs.
Finally the
Great Sejm of 1788–92 opened
the necessary reforms. One of its first acts was to approve the
creation of a 100,000-man army to defend the Commonwealth's borders
against its aggressive neighbors. Kościuszko saw this as a chance
to return to military service and serve his country in the field
that he knew best. He applied to the army and on October 12, 1789,
received a royal commission as a
major
general. As such, he began receiving the high salary of 12,000
złotys a year, which ended his financial
difficulties.
The Commonwealth's internal situation and the reforms initiated by
the
Constitution of May 3,
1791, the first constitution written in the modern era in
Europe and second in the world after the American, were seen by the
surrounding powers as a threat to their influence over Polish
politics. On May 14, 1792, conservative
magnates created the
Targowica Confederation, which asked
Russian Tsarina
Catherine II
for help in overthrowing the constitution.
On May 18, 1792, a
100,000-man Russian army crossed the Polish border and headed for
Warsaw
, thus opening the Polish-Russian War of
1792.
Defense of the Constitution: A Patriot In His Native Land
Although the plan to create a 100,000-man Polish Army was not
accomplished due to economic problems, the Polish Army was
well-trained and prepared for war.
Before the Russians invaded Poland, Kościuszko was appointed deputy
commander of Prince
Józef
Poniatowski's 3rd Crown
Infantry
Division. When the Prince became
Commander in Chief of the entire Polish
Army in May 1792, Kościuszko automatically assumed command of the
Division.
After
Prussia's betrayal of her Polish ally,
the Army of Lithuania did not oppose the advancing Russians.
The
Polish Army was too weak to oppose the enemy advancing into
Ukraine
and withdrew to the western side of the Bug River, where it regrouped and
counterattacked. Victorious in the
Battle of Zieleńce (June 18, 1792),
Kościuszko was among the first to receive the newly-created
Virtuti Militari medal, Poland's
highest military decoration even today.
In the ensuing Battles of
Włodzimierz (July 17, 1792) and
Dubienka (July 18) Kościuszko
repulsed the numerically superior enemy and came to be regarded as
one of Poland's most brilliant
military commanders of the time. On
August 1, 1792, King
Stanisław August promoted
him to
Lieutenant General. But
before the nomination arrived at Kościuszko's camp in
Sieciechów, the King had joined the ranks of
the
Targowica Confederation
and surrendered to the Russians.
Emigré: Biding Time
The King's capitulation was a hard blow for Kościuszko, who had not
lost a single battle in the campaign.
Together with many
other notable Polish commanders and politicians he fled to Dresden
and then to Leipzig
, where the émigrées began preparing an uprising
against Russian rule in Poland. The politicians, grouped
around
Ignacy Potocki and
Hugo Kołłątaj, sought contacts
with similar opposition groups formed in Poland and by spring 1793
had been joined by other politicians and revolutionaries, including
Ignacy Działyński.
On August 26, 1792, the
French Legislative Assembly
awarded Kościuszko with
honorary citizenship of France in honor of his fight for
freedom of his fatherland and the ideas of equality and liberty.
After two weeks in Leipzig, Kościuszko set off for Paris, where he
tried to gain French support of the planned uprising in
Poland.
On
January 13, 1793, Prussia and Russia
signed the
Second Partition of Poland,
which was ratified by the Sejm of
Grodno on June 17. Such an outcome was a giant blow for
the members of
Targowica
Confederation who saw their actions as a defense of
centuries-old privileges of the
magnates,
but now were regarded by the majority of the Polish population as
traitors. After the partition Poland
became a small country of roughly 200,000 square
kilometres and a population of approximately 4
million. The economy was ruined and the support for the cause of an
uprising grew significantly, especially since there was no serious
opposition to the idea after the Targowica Confederation was
discredited.
In June of 1793 Kościuszko prepared a plan of an all-national
uprising, mobilization of all the forces and a war against Russia.
The preparations in Poland were slow and he decided to postpone the
outbreak. However, the situation in Poland was changing rapidly.
The Russian and Prussian governments forced Poland to again disband
the majority of her armed forces and the reduced units were to be
drafted to the Russian army. Also, in March the tsarist agents
discovered the group of revolutionaries in Warsaw and started
arresting notable Polish politicians and military commanders.
Kościuszko was forced to execute his plan
earlier than planned and on March 15, 1794 he set off for Kraków
.
Kościuszko's Uprising: Poland's Own Washington
During the Uprising, Kościuszko was made
Naczelnik (Commander-in-Chief) of all
Polish-Lithuanian forces fighting against Russian occupation, and
issued the famous
Proclamation of Połaniec.
After
initial successes following the Battle of Racławice
, he was wounded in the Battle of Maciejowice and taken
prisoner by the Russians, who imprisoned him in Saint
Petersburg
—Kościuszko was held at Prince Orlov's Marble Palace
. The uprising ended soon afterwards with the
Siege of Warsaw.
Later Life: Unfulfilled Dream of a Poland Resurrected
In 1796 Tsar
Paul I of Russia
pardoned Kościuszko and set him free.
In exchange for his
oath of loyalty, Paul I also freed some 20,000 Polish political
prisoners held in Russian prisons and forcibly settled in Siberia
. The Tsar granted Kościuszko 12,000 roubles,
which the Polish leader attempted in 1798 to return; the Tsar
refused to accept it back as "money from a traitor".
Kościuszko emigrated to the United States, but the following year
returned to Europe and in 1798 settled in
Breville, near Paris. Still devoted to the Polish
cause, he took part in creating the
Polish Legions. Also, on October 17
and November 6, 1799 he met with
Napoleon Bonaparte. However, he failed to
reach any agreement with the French leader, who regarded Kościuszko
as a "fool" who "overestimated his influence" in Poland (letter
from Napoleon to
Fouché, 1807).
Kościuszko remained politically active in Polish émigré circles in
France and in 1799 was a founding member of the
Society of Polish
Republicans.
However, he did not return to the Duchy of
Warsaw
and did not join the reborn Polish Army allied with Napoleon.
Instead, after the fall of Napoleon's empire in 1815 he met with
Russia's
Tsar Alexander I in
Braunau. In return for his prospective services,
Kościuszko demanded social reforms and territorial gains for
Poland, which he wished to reach as far as the Dvina and
Dnieper Rivers in the east.
Alexander asked him to go to Warsaw.
However, soon
afterwards, in Vienna
, Kościuszko
learned that the Kingdom
of Poland
created by
the Tsar would be even smaller than the earlier Duchy of
Warsaw. Kościuszko called such an entity "a joke";
and when he received no reply to his letters to the Tsar, he left
Vienna and moved to Solothurn
, Switzerland
, where his friend Franciszek Zeltner was
mayor. Suffering from poor health and old wounds, on October
15 1817 Kościuszko died there of typhoid fever. Two years earlier,
he had emancipated his serfs.
Kościuszko's body was
embalmed and placed
in a
crypt at Solothurn's Jesuit Church.
His
viscera, removed in the process of
embalming, were separately interred in a graveyard at Zuchwil
, near Solothurn, except for the heart, for which an urn was
fashioned. In 1818 Kościuszko's body was transferred to
Kraków
, Poland,
and placed in a crypt at Wawel Cathedral
, a pantheon of
Polish kings and national
heroes. Kościuszko's heart, which had been preserved
at the Polish
Museum
in Rapperswil
, Switzerland, was in 1927, along with the rest of
the Museum's holdings, repatriated to Warsaw
, where the
heart now reposes in a chapel at the Royal
Castle
. Kościuszko's other viscera remain
interred at Zuchwil, where a large memorial stone was erected in
1820 and can be visited today, next to a Polish memorial
chapel.
Commemorations: Ultimate Legacy of the Purest Son Of
Liberty

Kosciuszko statue, Lafayette Square,
Washington, D.C.
As a national hero in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and the United
States, Kościuszko has given his name to many places around the
world.
The Polish explorer Count Paweł Edmund Strzelecki named
the highest mountain in continental Australia, Mount
Kosciuszko
, for him; the mountain is now the central point of
Kosciuszko
National Park
.
He has
also given his name to Kosciusko, Mississippi
and Kosciusko,
Texas; Kosciusko County, Indiana
; Kosciusko Island
in Alaska; New York State's two Kosciuszko Bridge (in
Latham
on I-87 just north of Albany
; and on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway);
Kosciuszko Street
; the Kosciuszko Bridge that crosses the Naugatuck
River in Naugatuck, Connecticut
; Kosciuszko Street in Brooklyn, New York
; Kosciuszko Street in Manchester,
New Hampshire
; Kosciuszko Street in Nanticoke,
Pennsylvania
; Kosciuszko Way in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania
; Kosciuszko Park in Stamford,
Connecticut
; Kosciuszko Street in South Bend, Indiana
, Kosciusko Street in Woburn,
Massachusetts
, and Thaddeus Kosciusko Way in downtown Los Angeles,
California
.
Monmouth, Illinois, was to be called Kosciuszko after that name was
drawn from a hat around 1831. It was decided that Kosciuszko would
be too hard to pronounce, so Monmouth was selected as an
alternative.
There is
a Kościuszko
Monument at the entrance to Kraków
's Wawel Castle
, where he was laid to rest. Its replica was
erected in Detroit,
Michigan
in 1978 (pictured). There is an equestrian statue of him at Kosciuszko
Park in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin
, across from the Polish Basilica of
St. Josaphat
, and other statues, in Boston
Public Garden
; Scranton, Pennsylvania
; Chicago's Museum Campus on Solidarity Drive;
Lafayette
Park
in Washington, D.C.
; the United States Military
Academy
at West Point
; Williams Park in
St.
Petersburg, Florida
; and Red Bud Springs Memorial Park in Kosciusko,
Mississippi
; in Kosciuszko Park in East Chicago, Indiana; and
(with Kazimierz Pułaski) in
Poland,
Ohio
, a village named in honor of the two heroes of the
American Revolution.

Kosciuszko statue, Boston Public
Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
In
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, his Revolutionary War home is
preserved as Thaddeus Kosciuszko National
Memorial
, administered as part of Independence
National Historical Park
; and a monument to him stands at the corner of
Benjamin
Franklin Parkway
and 18th Street. Hamtramck,
Michigan
, has a Kosciuszko Middle School; Winona,
Minnesota
has Washington-Kosciuszko Elementary School;
Chicago, a public park named for him in Logan
Square
; and East Chicago
, Indiana
, a public park (with statue), a school and a
neighborhood, all bearing Kosciuszko's name. Mount
Pleasant, Pennsylvania
has a Polish Falcons
Sportsman's Club named after Kosciuszko. There is a Kosciusko
Way in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
. In Grand Rapids, Michigan
, there is a club called Kosciuszko
Hall.
In Poland, every major town has a street or square named for
Kościuszko.
Between 1820 and 1823, the people of
Kraków
built the
Kościuszko
Mound
( ) to commemorate the Polish leader.
A similar
mound was built in 1861 at Olkusz
.
He is the patron of
Kraków University of
Technology,
Wrocław
Military University, and countless other schools and
gymnasia throughout
Poland.
He was the patron of the 1st Regiment of the
Polish 5th Rifle Division, and of
the
1st
Division of the
Polish 1st Army.
After
World War I the
Kościuszko Squadron, and during
World War II the
303rd Polish Squadron, were
named for him. Two ships have been named for him:
SS Kościuszko, and
ORP Generał Tadeusz
Kościuszko (a former
United
States Navy frigate that was transferred to Poland).
There are
also streets named for Kościuszko in Saint Petersburg
, Russia; downtown Belgrade
, Serbia
(Ulica Tadeuša Košćuška); Budapest
, Hungary (Kosciuszkó Tádé utca); and
Vilnius
, Lithuania
(Kosciuškos gatvė). There is a Kosciusko
Avenue in Geelong,
Victoria
and one in Canberra
in Australia. There is even a small
street named after him in Rio de Janeiro
, Brazil
. A Kosciuszko monument in Minsk,
Belarus
was dedicated in 2005.
Kosciusko
mustards are
distributed in the United States by
Plochman's.
Thomas Jefferson called Kościuszko
"as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known."
Mikael Dziewanowski claims he was a "pioneer of emancipation and a
spokesman for racial democracy and justice in eighteenth-century
America."
The home in Philadelphia, which is part of Independence National
Historical Park, was actually his post-Revolutionary home. He lived
there when he returned briefly to the USA.
See also
Notes
- R Morfill. The Story of Poland. 2009, p.239
- Aleksandra Piłsudska, Jennifer Ellis. Pilsudski. 1971,
p.72
- Gordon McLachlan. Lithuania. 2008, p.20
- for instance, see series of Belarusian postage stamps with T. Koscciuszko
from the early 1990s
- Bartłomiej Szyndler, Powstanie kościuszkowskie 1794, Warszawa
1994, passim.
- Tadeusz
Korzon, Kościuszko, biografia z dokumentów wysnuta.
Kraków, Warszawa, 1894.
- Kościuszko's American last will and testament, in
English translation in Manfred Kridl, ed., For Your Freedom and
Ours.
- Feliks Koneczny - "Święci w dziejach Narodu
Polskiego".
- For your freedom and ours, the Kościuszko squadron,
Olson&Cloud, pg 22, Arrow books ISBN 0-09-942812-1
- Gemeinde Zuchwil (German)
- Kościuszko Mound: Biography
- Rick Steves, Cameron Hewitt, Rick Steves' Best of Eastern Europe
2007 by Avalon
- Zacharias, Pat, The Monuments of Detroit,
September 5, 1999. Detroit News
- Kosciusko Mustards
- Mikael Dziewanowski's "Tadeuz Kościuszko, Kazimierz Puaski, and
the American War of Independence," in Jaraslaw Pelenki, ed.,
The American and European Revolutions, 1776-1848:
Sociopolitical and Ideological Aspects; Proceedings of the Second
Bicentennial Conference of Polish and American Historians,
September 29 — October 1 1976 (Iowa City: University of Iowa
Press, 1980).
References
External links
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