Two Poles crossed the Atlantic to fight for a republic that did not yet exist, and both mattered out of all proportion to their numbers. One remade the army's cavalry and was mortally wounded leading a charge; the other drew the fortifications that turned two of the war's decisive moments. The engineer then went home to fight for the freedom of Poland itself; the cavalryman, who had fought for it before he came, gave his life for America.
Casimir Pulaski. A cavalry commander from the Bar Confederation1, recommended to Washington by Benjamin Franklin1. He rebuilt the Continental cavalry from almost nothing2, raised his own legion, and was mortally wounded leading a charge at Savannah in 1779. He is remembered as the father of the American cavalry1.
The death of Pulaski, as imagined in Henry Davenport Northrop's illustrated history of the United States, 1901. Public domain
Tadeusz Kościuszko. A military engineer whose field fortifications at Bemis Heights helped trap a British army3 at Saratoga in 1777, the turning point that brought France into the war4. He then designed the great fortress at West Point3, and later led the 1794 uprising that bears his name5.
Why they crossed the ocean
Both men came from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as it was being torn apart by its neighbours, and both saw in the American cause the same fight for liberty they knew at home. Pulaski gave the young republic a cavalry arm it had lacked; Kościuszko gave it the engineering that let smaller American armies stand against professional troops. Their service is one reason the friendship between Poland and the United States runs so deep.
Tadeusz Kościuszko painted by Józef Kosiński in 1790, a few years after his return from America; National Museum in Warsaw. Public domain
Who were the Polish heroes of the American Revolution?
The two most famous are Casimir Pulaski, who reorganised the Continental cavalry, and Tadeusz Kościuszko, the military engineer who fortified Saratoga and West Point.
What did Casimir Pulaski do in the American Revolution?
He rebuilt the weak Continental cavalry, raised his own legion of horse and foot, and was mortally wounded leading a charge at the Siege of Savannah in 1779. He is called the father of the American cavalry.
What did Tadeusz Kościuszko do in the American Revolution?
As a military engineer he laid out the fortifications that helped trap the British at Saratoga in 1777 and designed the defences of West Point on the Hudson.
Why did Poles fight in the American Revolution?
Both men came from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as it was being partitioned by its neighbours, and saw the American fight for liberty as the same cause they knew at home.
Did Pulaski and Kościuszko know each other?
They served the same cause in the same war, though in different theatres; Kościuszko was an engineer first in the north (Saratoga, West Point) and from 1780 in the south under Greene, by which time Pulaski, who had led cavalry in the north and then the south, was already dead.
What happened to them after the war?
Pulaski died in America in 1779. Kościuszko returned to Poland and led the 1794 uprising against Russia and Prussia that bears his name.
Sources and notes
Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.
