On 24 March 1863, in the wooded valley of St. Roch near the small town of Krasnobród in the Roztocze hills of southeastern Poland, a band of insurgents under Colonel Marcin Borelowski, known by the nom de guerre “Lelewel”, fought a Russian column commanded by Major Yakov Ogalin. Many of the Poles carried scythes rather than rifles. They were beaten, and 42 of them were killed. It was a small battle in a war made of small battles, yet the town has kept its memory: the dead lie in a mass grave in the parish cemetery, and local people still gather there on the anniversary.
A partisan war
The January Uprising broke out on 22 January 1863 in the Kingdom of Poland, the part of the former Commonwealth ruled by the Russian Empire. The insurgents had no regular army. According to the church historian Edward Walewander, even at the height of the fighting, in August 1863, there were only about 30,000 of them, in partisan units scattered across the Kingdom, against the vast army of the tsar. The rising dragged on into 1864 before it was crushed.1
Borelowski came from an unusual background for a commander. He was a craftsman, and the title of Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz's 1964 biography, cited by the historian Zdzisław Bieleń, calls him a tinsmith who became a colonel of the uprising. In the spring of 1863 his band fought in the Lublin region, at Krasnobród in the Roztocze hills and at Borowe Młyny.2
The fight in the valley of St. Roch
The two forces met on the morning of 24 March in the valley of St. Roch outside Krasnobród. The Krasnobród cultural center, in a text by a local historian, describes a cold and rainy morning and a hard fight with scythes and sabers, after which Lelewel, seeing the enemy's superiority, ordered a retreat.3
The size of the Polish band is uncertain. The regional news site Zamojska24 speaks of about 320 poorly armed Poles, most of them scythemen and riflemen. None of the sources consulted gives a reliable figure for the Russian column; Zamojska24 describes only well-armed regular troops with bayonets and guns, greatly superior to the Poles.4
The Polish losses are better attested. The Krasnobród cultural center and the regional news site Zamojska24 both give 42 insurgents killed. The local historian's text claims more than 100 Russians fell, a figure no other source consulted confirms.5
A grave in the parish cemetery
After the fighting, the local text says, men from the town loaded the bodies onto carts and buried them in a pit at the edge of the parish cemetery. The same local account says the Russian authorities forbade any cross on the grave. Only in 1916 did local people set up a three-meter oak cross inscribed “God save Poland” over it.6
In 1930 a stone monument of an eagle tearing its chains was raised on the grave in place of the cross. According to the Krasnobród cultural center, the stone began to crumble and was replaced in 2008 by a new eagle carved by the Krasnobród sculptor Andrzej Gancarz. Each 24 March, delegations from the town and its schools lay flowers there.7
For the long story of Polish arms, see our guide to the greatest battles in Polish history.
Lelewel's last campaign
Krasnobród did not end Borelowski's war. On 16 April 1863 he fought at Borowe Młyny, his first clash with Major Ivan Sternberg, according to the historian Tomasz Brytan, and on 3 September he won a victory at Panasówka. Three days later, on 6 September 1863, the Russians caught his force in the wooded ravines near Batorz. Bieleń's study of that last campaign describes a defeat that ended with Lelewel's death on the field.8
