Tadeusz Kościuszko (born February 4, 1746 in the village of Mereszowszczyzna, Lithuania, Poland; died October 15, 1817, Solothurn, Switzerland) was a Polish general and a leader of that nation's uprising against Russia in 1794. There are several Anglicized speelings for his name, but the most frequent is Thaddeus Kosciusko. He fought in the American Revolutionary War on the side of Washington, for which he was awarded by the United States Congress the rank of Brigadier-General.
Kosciuszko was born into an upper-middle-class aristocratic family. After finishing his military studies in Warsaw, he studied military engineering in France.
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2 Polish Wars 3 Later Life 4 External links |
American Revolutionary War
Kosciusko was recruited in France by Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin. Based on their reccomendation the Congress commisssioned him a Colonel in 1776.
After earning the rank of general, he took part in the American Revolutionary War. He was in charge of military engineering works at West Point, and also made significant contributions to the American victory at Saratoga in 1777.
Polish Wars
In 1792 in Poland he was military commander in the War in the defence of constitution, defence of Poland against Russian invasion. With the invasion successful, resulting in the Second partition of Poland, he fled to Saxony, but returned in 1794 to lead Kosciuszko Uprising as the head of state against Russian occupation. He was captured by the Russians, but the Catherine II of Russia soon died. Her son Paul of Russia, who hated his mother, reverted all her decisions, which included realeasíng all Polish political prisoners. Kosciuszko was pardoned and released.
Later Life
He spent the rest of his life in exile in the United Statesand Switzerland, refusing to serve as Napoleon's puppet at the head of the government of the Principality of Warsaw.
The Polish explorer Count Paul Strzelecki named Mount Kosciuszko, in Australia, for him. He is also the namesake of Kosciusko, Mississippi, Kosciusko County in Indiana, the Kosciusko Bridge in New York State (just north of Albany), and Thaddeus Kosciusko Way in downtown Los Angeles.