Father Thaddeus
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked, as Kosciuszko fell!
Thomas Campbell
“What do you wish to do?” said Washington.
The young Polish officer with a rugged face, held himself erect.
“I come,” answered he, “to fight as a volunteer for American Independence.”
“What can you do?” asked Washington.
“Try me!” said the young Pole, his dark eyes flashing pleasantly.
So Washington tried him.
He was Thaddeus Kosciuszko, born in Lithuania, and a Patriot of unhappy Poland.
Poor Poland! Dismembered, patriotic Poland! Again and again she had been betrayed, and divided by her greedy neighbours, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. But always the fires of Patriotism had burned in the hearts of the Poles, and though they had been forced to bow their necks to their enemies they had never bowed their hearts.
And it was a romantic story that had sent young Kosciuszko post-haste from Poland to America. He was poor but of good blood. He had fallen in love with a beautiful and clever Polish girl. Her father was a haughty, rich State official. He would not give his consent to their marriage. So the young lovers eloped. The father pursued them with his men. Kosciuszko fought like a lion to defend his beloved Ludwika. But her father’s men wounded him so severely that he fell senseless on the field. Then her father carried Ludwika home, and married her to another man.
When Kosciuszko came to his senses, his Love was gone. Her handkerchief stained with his own blood, lay beside him. He took it up reverently and placed it in his bosom.
Thus disappointed in love, he had left Poland and come to America to forget his grief in fighting for Freedom. For Kosciuszko had been a Patriot and a lover of Liberty for all men, since his early boyhood.
Washington placed him on his own staff. Soon he found that the young man had talent, and was an experienced army engineer. He commissioned him Chief Engineer. Kosciuszko rendered great service to America, but his most important work was on the defenses of West Point.
When our War for Independence was over, he returned to Poland. He became her leading Patriot, defending her against the invasions of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. “Father Thaddeus” his men called him, as he led them into battle.
During his famous defense of Warsaw, he was badly wounded on the battle-field, and captured by Cossacks. He was thrown into a Russian prison; and there he was kept until after the death of Catherine the Great.
He was released by the new Czar, who admired him, and wished to give him a brilliant commission in the Russian Army. But Kosciuszko refused his offer, and went into voluntary exile. He still hoped that some day again he might serve Poland.
His wounds were yet unhealed. There was a sabre-cut across his forehead. There were three bayonet-thrusts in his back. A part of his thigh had been torn away by a cannon ball. Around his forehead, he kept a black band tied over the sabre-cut.
He went into exile, and the people of Poland believed that he was dead.
It was nearly seventy-five years after that red-letter day in Lithuania, on which Thaddeus Kosciuszko had been born.
It was in 1814, France and Russia were at war. The Russian Army, as it advanced against Paris, was barbarously pillaging the valley of the Seine. The soldiers were burning the cottages of the poor peasants over their heads, and ill-treating the children, women, and aged folk.
Among the Russian troops was a Polish Regiment. And while its soldiers were savagely burning and looting the little houses, an old man with a scar across his forehead, rushed suddenly in among them.
Raging like a lion, he shouted in Polish:—
“When I commanded brave soldiers, they never pillaged—I should have punished them severely! And still more severely would I have punished officers who allowed such disorders as you are all now engaged in!”
“And who are you, my pretty old man,” cried the officers with sneers and laughter, “who are you that you dare to speak to us in such a tone, and with such boldness!”
“I am Kosciuszko,” was the quick reply.
Each man stood fixed to the spot. Each was paralyzed with astonishment.
There, before them with flashing eyes, stood Poland’s hero—the Polish soldiers’ “Father Thaddeus.”
Then the men threw down their arms to the ground. They cast themselves at his feet. They sprinkled dust upon their heads as was their wild custom at home. They crept close to him, hugging his knees and begging for his forgiveness—for the forgiveness of their “Father Thaddeus.”
When Kosciuszko died in Switzerland, in 1817, there was found in his bosom next his heart, the blood-stained handkerchief which his lost love Ludwika had dropped beside him, so long before.
To-day, in a little chapel at the foot of the lime-planted Hill, the Lindenhof, there is a bronze urn, in which lies the once brave heart of Thaddeus Kosciuszko.