>> alex storoczynski executive director and president of the kosciuszko foundation, recounts the life of thaddeus kosciuszko, an immigrant to the u.s. who became an engineer in the e continental army and fortified philadelphia and devised battle plans for the victory in saratoga and following the war returned to poland and became commander-in-chief though polish army and the polish embassy in washington d.c. hosted this event. it is an hour. [applause]. >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. just to make sure everybody is in the right place, for those of you who thought this was a public hearing on the kosciuszko bridge... that would be taking place place at the dot headquarters. this is also, not about the kosciuszko twin bridges north of albany, new york, or this is not about kosciuszko, mississippi,

birthplace of the lovely oprah winfrey and some of you may have heard of kosciuszko county, indiana or one of many other statues and places in america, named after kosciuszko. and those of you who thought this was going to be a discussion about kosciuszko mustard... that discussion takes place at your local deli every day. [laughter]. >> no, this is about thaddeus kosciuszko, the peasants prince, and he and this age of revolution. he was a prince of tolerance who stood up for the disenfranchised of all race, religions and genders and was probably the greatest humanitarian of his era, in 1817 when the news of his death in exile in switzerland spread throughout europe funeral masses were held in catholic, lutheran and calvinist churches and jewish temples and mosques held services where the worshipers prayed for god to take kosciuszko's soul to heaven. think about it. europe had gone through decades of ethnic and religious strife,

yet, everybody prayed for his soul. kosciuszko was born in futilistic europe at a time when the polish lit winnian commonwealth spanned foment black sea to the baltic and his family had a modest estate an under feudalism, if you owned land you owned the people that were on the land. and his family owned 31 peasant families that tilled the fields that belonged to his families and the families that owned these slaves, the slaves worked from day until night. but poland had a form of democracy where the kings were elected. and their king at the time of of kosciuszko's with as stanislaus agust tis and he was elected thanks to his lover, katherine the great of russia. russia started having more and more of an impact in polish society at this time, so, a lot of poles were trying to figure out ways to drive out this russians. one of them was prince adam

casualty zaeshgiski who we see here and he caught the -- kosciuszko caught his attention. who was at the time, starting a night school to create a class of soldiers to drive out the russians and kosciuszko caught his attention because he was brilliant in math an art and kosciuszko did this drawing, of the prince. now, after graduating from the royal school which today is the administration building of the university of warsaw, kosciuszko became a captain of the artillery, and during the time, some of the families, the families in poland decided they wanted to get rid of the russians even faster. so a civil war broke out. and in that civil war, kashmir polaski, who also served in the american revolution led the civil war to drive out the russians and kosciuszko had a choice to make. do i join with polaski and help

drive out the russians and go against the king an prince who paid for my studies, either way, he would be killing poles and decided not to take sides and instead took advantage of a scholarship to go to france, and study art and on the side studied military engineering because he couldn't go to the military school in paris because he was not a french citizen, he audited those classes and learned all of the theories about those who created these incredible military strategies. and while he was there, he did these paintings, this is one of them. and here's another palace that he designed, meant for prins a prince, and in paris, he also became obsessed with the new philosophy and economic philosophy called fizz yok across, and under that, those who started it had a theory that all wealth comes from the land.

and those who own the land are this richest, but why are they the richest? they are this richest because the serfs, peasants farm the land and make it more valuable and he came up with this philosophy, laissez faire, hands off the serfs and give them more of the fruits of their labor and they'll be happier, and they'll produce more. well, kosciuszko absolutely fell in love with that theory because it had a lot of implications for poland, this peasants were also slaves in poland and when he returned to poland, he couldn't get a job in the military and took a job tutoring the daughters of one of the richest money in poland. lord sosnofski. he had a daughter, named louise. and kosciuszko started tutoring her and explaining to her about psisiocracy and she says don't tell me about that, when you were in paris making nice drawings, me and my sister

translated the first book from french into polish on that and that was it and he fell madly in love with her. [laughter]. >> and he decided that he wanted to marry her and went to the lord and said, i would like to marry your daughter. and the lord looked at a kosciuszko's estate, and realized he didn't have much money and said i'm sorry, pigeons are not meant for sparrows and daughters of land mag gnats are not meant for the sons of the common gentry. and kosciuszko tried to elope with her. unfortunately, he was captured. and he pulled out his sword and he was about to fight off the lord and his men, and he realized that this is the father of the woman i'm in love with. so he put his sword back into the sheath, and they beat him up and knocked him unconscious and they took the daughter away. now, kosciuszko later had to run away, because after this the father decided that he is going to try and prosecute him, for

abducting his daughter. and so kosciuszko left, went to paris and learned about this american revolution, first heard about the battled of lexington and concord and he set sail for america. and, after crossing the atlantic, in hurricane season where his boat was ship wrecked in the caribbean, and he had to swim to shore, with the mast because the boat fell apart, eventually made his way to philadelphia. and when he got to philadelphia, he went and it's do you haved himself to the only american he ever heard of. benjamin franklin. and he walked into ben franklin's office and he said i'd like to take your test for military engineering. and ben franklin looked at him like he was from mars and said we're a country of farmers and merchant and don't have an army, much less a test for what is it? military engineering and we do have somebody who knows a lot about gee yorment and come back

and we'll give you a geometry test and he came back and took the test and he aced it and ben franklin sid are in charge of building forts and he built forts across the delaware river from philadelphia, at forts mercer and billingsport and while he was building these forts, they realized that the british ships would sail into the delaware, and try to bombard philadelphia. so he started building what is known as a chevaux de frise, they were tree trunks, saved down and put iron tips on the end and put them under water and when the ships would sail in, they would puncture the bottom of the ship. and then they would sink. the americans said, this guy knows what he is doing and made hum a colonel of the engineers and paid him a reward, and ben franklin went off to paris and suddenly there was a battle, for who would kosciuszko work for next. well, he got the attention of

general horatio gates, who was the commander of the northern army for the continental army. and, general gates was in charming of new york and he knew the british would be coming down from canada, and attacking from three sides. so, he sent kosciuszko up here to a place called fort tie con droing ga and said find out if it is secure and a place we can make our stand. ticonderoga and he got up to the fort and said you have a fantastic for the here and you have this hill, and if the british come down, and put canons on the hill they can shoot into the fort and this americans didn't listen to him because they said, how will we get canons up this steep hill? and so they didn't do it. well, the british came down and the general's army came down and sure enough, general phillips, who was with him said let's get a canon up there. and the british soldiers also whined. and general phillips said, listen we're a -- where a goat

can go a man can go and where a man can go, he can haul up a gun, bring cans canons up there and this next day this americans woke up and saw little red coats dancing up here, shooting canon walls into the water, and when they started landing into the fort, they realized, we have to evacuate because we're dead ducks. so they marched down the hudson trying to run away and they put kosciuszko in charming of covering the rear. and kosciuszko to slow down the british troops cut down trees 0 cover the roads, and also rolled boulders to reroute streams so they'd flood the roads and as a result it took the british 20 days to travel 22 is my, because of these blocked roads. so kosciuszko earned a reputation of having this [speaking german) where you look at the terrain and your fingertips feel where the canon should be and where you should maker stand and this americans lucked out because they were

going to be attacked from three sides and the general changed course and attacked philadelphia, and the british were repelled off into the west, and so this americans only had to deal with the general's army marching from the north and kosciuszko now was put in charge of where to put the canons. so, he came up and drafted plans for the battle of saratoga. which is seen here. and these are kosciuszko's plans for the battle. and he knew that with the british come down from the north, they would not be able to flank the american army to the east, because the hudson river was there. and he knew they wouldn't flank them to the west because there was heavy forest. so he realized the british would be here, marching up the hill and the americans were hill, defending an elevated position. and as a result of that, this battle plan, the united states won the battle of saratoga which was the turning point of the

american revolution. now, unfortunately, there was a flamboyant character also at that battle, in benedict arnold who often is credited for the ball because he charged down the hill and told, you know, my boys, let's go and ended up getting shot and wounded but the real credit went to general horatio gates who was the commanding officer of the battle. and when everyone started giving gates credit for that among them was dr. rush, who was the most famous doctor in the american revolution, and general gates replied to him, stop, doctor, stop, let ussen honest, in war as in medicine, natural causes not under our control do much. in the present case, the great tacticians of the campaign were this hills and for rest which a young polish engineer was skillful enough to select for my encampment and kosciuszko became closer and closer with general gates and that is because when slave owners tried to send their

slaves to the battle of saratoga, to fight in their place, gates allowed these black men to enlist in the army under their own name and kosciuszko saw the black slaves of america the same way that he did the white serfs under feudalistic europe, they both blanked to the land and slavery in america was much more brutal than feudalism was, he equated them as similar and now that they realized kosciuszko knew what he was doing, they decided that they'd put him in charge of what washington called the key to america, west point. and the whole point of guarding west point, was because the americans knew that the british would try and contain the american revolution to the new england states where they began and if the americans could control the north river at the time which is now called the hudson river, they would be able to keep it all in one place. and because the americans didn't really have a navy, they realized that what they can do is fire on the ships, from the water. so they put a giant chain across

the river, and decided they would build a fort right here, to shoot down at the british when they tried to make the turn in the bend in the hudson river and kosciuszko looked back here, and saw these hills and knew that had the same problem at the fort, you need to cover the high ground. now, the americans weren't too sure about that again. and for them the only important thing was the chain. if we put the chevy rain across the hudson, it stand today, at west point, the british won't be able to sail up and down the river. so kosciuszko kept arguing that you need to put the high points up there, and eventually, they listened to him. now, while he was at west point, he became friends with the general patterson. and general patterson had a black man who was not a slave, a free black man, named hull, and hull was a lively character, who was a great raconteur and told

stories about his father who he said was a prince om africa and kosciuszko became so close to him, patterson said from now on you work for him and kosciuszko built a log cabin at west pointed from which he worked out of his headquarters and would always go to different hills and do drawings to figure out how to do the blueprints for west point and decided to cross the hudson river and stay there three days and do blueprints and come back. and he told grippy, as everyone called him, i'll be back in three days and well, grippy had the cabin to himself for three days. and what did he do? had a party. and he invited all of the black men at west point, whether they were slaves or free black men, and they decided they were going to drink all of kosciuszko's wine. and they got happy drinking the wine and started dancing around, and grippy decided that he was going to try on kosciuszko's dress uniform from poland. and the dress uniform from poland has a giant ostrich feather stick, out of the top

and since kosciuszko took his boots with him grippy put boot black on his feet so they would look like boots and was dancing around in the cabin. well, kosciuszko couldn't make it across the river. and he came back the same night. [laughter]. >> and when he arrived, he walked in on the party, and all of these black men were in shock and made faces as if they had seen the devil and jumped out the windows and rushed for the door and grippy here, fell to his feet and said, whip me, kill me, do anything, with me, mr. general. kosciuszko took grippy by the hand and he say, rise, prince, it is beneath the dignity of an african prince to prostrate himself at the feet of anyone. and he dragged him out, and brought him over to the other american officers, and he said, we have a prince from africa who came to join our cause and by the way, he likes to drink. so, they started toasting him

and they made him swill wine, brandy and a cocktail called hollands made from dutch gin distilled from rebarley and flavored with juniper berries and rather than beating or whipping him, for violating his clothes, he assembled -- the party goers decided to haze him college style and they smoked a peace pipe in his honor, until he got sick. so the next day, instead of waking up with lashes on his back he woke up with a really bad hangovers. now, during the 2-and-a-half years that kosciuszko was in west point, he kept again arguing that it is great we have the fort here, guarding the chain, but we have these other spots, these hills, where we need to put forts and readouts and the americans were not convinced. and so, this is west point today, actually a statue of kosciuszko at west point. he climbed up to this vantage point, which is -- readout

number 4 and said from up here you need canons up hear at all times, because you can see the plain from here and unless we have canons here, we'll have a repeat of fort ticonderoga where we'll be sitting ducks and there were, after the battle of saratoga, french engineers started showing up, in america as well. and the french engineers said, no, no, no, this is out of range, we'll never, never put canons up here, no point to do this. and eventually, george washington said, i think i agree with the polish guy. let's put forts up there. and so, they built fort hut putnam which you see here, which stands today at west point and this is fort putnam from the other side. and kosciuszko essentially built the series of forts at west point, 13 different readouts and heavy forts, that became an

impenetrable fortification the british couldn't attack and around this time there was someone else who noticed this. benedict arnold. he was making a secret plot with the british to sell kosciuszko's plans for west point, to the british. now, kosciuszko warned, all the time, the vantage point which you saw, we need 200 money up there to be stationed at all times. after serving two-and-a-half years at west point, kosciuszko wanted to get back into battle and george washington said, okay. go down to the south, we need your skills down there. and on the same day he went to the south, george washington butt put benedict arnold in charge of west point and he wrote an order to all of his men, saying, we don't need 200 guys up there, in case of alarm, quote, only a noncommissioned officer and three men should be up there. and then wrote to the british, saying when you come in, come in the back way, readout number 4. and that's the best way, because then all of these forts will fall like dominos and luckily,

benedict arnold was caught and his plot was uncovered when the spy, mr. -- major andre, was trying to cross lines into the british sector and found with this map. this map is a recreation of kosciuszko's plans by a french engineer, named villefrench and kosciuszko gave all of his plans and put them into a suitcase and gave them to sarah warren for safekeeping and when benedict are the old's plot was uncovered, mrs. warren who was terrified that it might fall into enemy hands took it outside and put it on the lan and set it on fire -- lawn and set it on fire and this was recreated by villefrench and what major andre, benedict arnold's spy was caught with when he tried go to the british. in the south, kosciuszko now, now saw slavery up and close for

the first time, to such an extent as it was. here's a map of virginia, and you see, the areas where there were large populations of slaves and here kosciuszko met thomas jefferson for the first time. thomas jefferson, the man who wrote "all men are created equal" owned slaves. and kosciuszko thought he was a hypocrite. kosciuszko ended up serving the rest of the war in the carolinas, where he developed the rapport with slaves in the southern states and brought grimy with him and the friendship helped him out a lot an kosciuszko was drawn to other continental soldiers, who were also abolitionists, one of them was colonel lawrence, who was an out spoken opponent of slavery. and when colonel lawrence was killed, the other men started taking off his clothes. and kosciuszko wrote to general green who was the commanding officer in the south, this was mean and low thinking. and the two negroes longing to lawrence are naked and want shirts, jackets, and breaches and their skin can bear as well as ours, good things.

kosciuszko was in charge now of south carolina, and basically surrounding and putting the stranglehold on charleton. and the way he kept track of what was going on in charleton, was, he had black spies that would go into charlton, and then come back and tell him, which people were loyalists, and which people were with the rebels. eventually, kosciuszko was able to shut off charleton and the revolution ended. and he actually fought in the last battle of the revolution. now, at the end of the war, the americans owed kosciuszko a salary of $12,280. they couldn't pay him because the u.s. treasury was not set up yet. and they gave him bonds bearing interest at 6%, and it didn't help him, because he wanted to go back to poland, and so he met this man, heim solomon, and he was a polish jew who came to

poland in 1775. and he hung his shingle at 22 wall street, which was already a -- new york city was all a pollyglot city and he traveled around europe and spoke different languages and started trading incurrences and knew all of the european laws, and he made a lot of money, and he opened a shop and traded, quote, every species of much in every branch of business. well, solomon became friends with jefferson, madison, and a lot of the people he agreed with politically, so he would give them loans, and these were loans that he didn't want paid back. and this is one of the greatest lost heros of the american revolution, because, heim solomon ended up funding much of the american revolution and the british arrested him in new york, and he escaped, and he made his way to philadelphia. and in philadelphia, he opened up a brugge, essentially a stock market, and it was out of the back of a coffee shop and

kosciuszko met him in philadelphia, and he gave -- solomon gave him $142, which was the money he most likely used to sail back to poland and kosciuszko -- and before from his time in poland understood the plight of the jews and wrote to general green, that unfortunately, i'll be traveling around, and i'll be, quote, in a situation of the israelites, perhaps, i will be obliged to ram bell on for two years or more and this is my misfortune. and obviously he's referring to the diaspora of the jews and felt like he would also be without a home. and kosciuszko did make it back to poland, and when he made it back to poland, this is warsaw, he saw that the situation is even worse than it was before. the russians were controlling more and more things. and, serfdom was more brutal and he wrote to his sister, it is a word that must be cursed by all enlightened nations. luckily, there were many people in poland at the time who agreed

with him. by now, the french revolution was going on, and there was also a polish revolution that began. and the polish king who knew that unless he joined the people who were trying to reform the situation, would suffer the same fate, as the royalty in paris. and so, the poles passed the first written democratic constitution in europe. this was the second constitution in the world, only to that of the u.s. and, provided a form of habeas corpus, new rights for the berger classes and the jews and serfs who fled from other countries would be granted amnesty in poland and the king went into the cathedral and swore before god he'd honor the constitution and the constitution was so amazing that jefferson commented on it, george washington commented on it, and thomas payne was so pleased with the new constitution he considered applying for polish citizenship.

however, catherine the great said if the poles free their serfs, mine will wanted to be free, and she got together with the prussians, and the austrians and they all attacked poland at once. now, kosciuszko who had fought in the american revolution, and was very impressed with the notion of minute mitt men and militias, explained to the poles that we need to have groups that are ready, and different areas, so we'll have our regular army and when the war goes to different regions, we should have local people ready. and at the time, in poland, 80% of the population were serfs, and 10% know built and 10% were jews. now, he wrote, that we need to have a regular army, recruited by force, made up -- if we have a regular arm recruited by force, made up of mole peasant with no legal rights, where government protection of their persons or their property they won't feel ties to our country and not be interested in our common good. and if we have this militia of

all classes, he wrote, especially the nobles should be represented in the same proportion as peasant, jews and those with no complete ties now in our country. so, essentially he was telling the know buinokno know built we guns to the serfs, and like the americans in the south, planation owners didn't want to give guns to the black slaves, because they knew they would turn them on them the nobility in poland said if we give guns to the peasants they'll turn them on us and this didn't listen. and -- they didn't listen and as a result poland lost the war, attacked by all three sides and the army not big enough to deal with three armies from three different countries. so, kosciuszko was again forced to flee his country. this time, he went to paris, where he witnessed the guillotine in action and kosciuszko was disgusted and later told poles they would not have a french revolution.

and then went to rome, where the vatican hierarchy considered making him the head of the pope's army and conservative cardinals viewed the participation in the american revolution with a bunch of protestants as too radical for them. so, after traveling around europe, kosciuszko decided he'd go back and the poles would be on their own and on may the, 1794, a revolutionary council that wanted to drive the russians out of poland proclaimed him the commander in chief. and that same day, kosciuszko gave four speeches, to the army, the citizenry, the clergy and to the women of poland. and then, kosciuszko walked into the old synagogue, and he spoke with the rabbi and toll his congregation that he needed their support, in the revolution. this is the plaque inside the synagogue which commemorates kosciuszko's visit with the rabbi and with the jews, and at first the jews didn't know what to make of kosciuszko's proposition, because while individual jews had fought in

separated armies, and different countries, they had never had their own army. but after a while, they saw that they could trust kosciuszko and in some areas of poland as much as 20% of the army was jewish. in addition to the regular army, kosciuszko decided since the peasants will not be given guns they will take their size with those -- with the -- they bent the blades forward and decided that would be their weapon. so, these only with these blades, and with axes did these peasants go into battled: -- >> battle: