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Tadeusz Kosciuśzko Facts

Tadeusz Kosciuśzko Facts
Tadeusz Kosciuśzko was a Polish military leader who took part in numerous wars in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most notably for Americans in the American Revolutionary War on the side of the Patriots. Kosciuśzko served as an officer in the Continental Army where he used his military experience and engineering knowledge in both the Northern and Southern Theater of operations. He was instrumental in building fortifications and Saratoga and West Point, eventually earning the respect of General Washington and promotion to the rank of Brigadier General. Like the Marquis de Lafayette, Tadeusz Kosciuśzko was an extremely popular non-American among Americans of the Revolutionary War era. Kosciuśzko was born on February 4, 1746 to a noble family in Brest Litovsk, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was educated in France, became fluent in several languages, served in several different armies, and was an ardent proponent of the Enlightenment.
Interesting Tadeusz Kosciuśzko Facts:
Kosciuśzko's true loves were the military and revolution, but he fell in love with a young noblewoman of higher status named Ludwika. He was twenty-eight and she was eighteen and by all accounts they were in love, but her family stepped, took her away, and beat Kosciuśzko. From that point on he fought monarchies around the world.
He arrived in America just after the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Kosciuśzko was moved by the Declaration of Independence and sought out Thomas Jefferson because of it. The two men developed a lifelong friendship and business relationship.
He left America in 1784 with an IOU for his services, which he claimed later as land.
After he returned to his homeland, Kosciuśzko helped craft a new Polish constitution and fought against Russia in the Polish-Russian War.
He served time in prison in the late 1790s for leading a rebellion in Poland against its Russian rulers.
Kosciuśzko is one of the few people in history to have never lost a battle!
After a brief visit to the United States, Kosciuśzko returned to France in 1798 just as Napoleon came to power, but never worked with the dictator.
Kosciuśzko died on October 17, 1817 in Solothurn, Switzerland at the age of seventy-one. His health had been declining for some time, which was aggravated when he fell off a horse days earlier.
With no heirs, Kosciuśzko's American estate, which included several slaves, was tied up in the court for decades. He stipulated that the slaves should be sold and the land sold with the proceeds going to help educate the former slaves.
In an interesting post-script to Kosciuśzko's life, there were three separate burials: one for his body, another for his internal organs, and third for his heart.
Nearly every town in Poland has a street named after Kosciuśzko today. Several other countries also have places named after him, but fittingly, the United States has the second most, with towns, counties, parks, and streets all named after him.


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