Casimir Pulaski

Kazimierz Michał Władysław Wiktor Pułaski (; March 4 or 6, 1745 October 11, 1779), anglicised as Casimir Pulaski , was a Polish nobleman, soldier, and military commander who has been called "The Father of American cavalry" or "The Soldier of Liberty". Born in Warsaw and following in his father's footsteps, he became interested in politics at an early age. He soon became involved in the military and in revolutionary affairs in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Pulaski was one of the leading military commanders for the Bar Confederation and fought against the Commonwealth's foreign domination. When this uprising failed, he was driven into exile.

Following a recommendation by Benjamin Franklin, Pulaski traveled to North America to help in the American Revolutionary War. He distinguished himself throughout the revolution, most notably when he saved the life of George Washington. Pulaski became a general in the Continental Army, and he and his friend, the Hungary-born colonel commandant Michael Kovats, raised Pulaski's Legion and reformed the American cavalry as a whole. At the siege of Savannah, while leading a cavalry charge against British forces, he was fatally wounded by grapeshot and died shortly after.

Pulaski is remembered as a hero who fought for independence and freedom in Poland and the United States. Numerous places and events are named in his honor, and he is commemorated by many works of art. Pulaski is one of only eight people to be awarded honorary United States citizenship.

Personal life Pulaski was born on March 6, 1745, in the manor house of the Pułaski family in Warsaw, Poland. (Older sources have cited varying dates and places of birth of Pulaski.) The suggested alternative dates have been March 4, 1746, or 1747, and the alternative place of birth, Pułaski family manor at Winiary.

The Pułaski family was Catholic. Early in his youth, Casimir Pulaski attended an elite college run by Theatines, a male religious order of the Catholic Church in Warsaw, but did not finish his education.

Military career In 1762, Pulaski started his military career as a page of Carl Christian Joseph of Saxony, Duke of Courland and the Polish king's vassal. He spent six months at the ducal court in Mitau, during which the court was interned in the palaces by the Russian forces occupying the area. He then returned to Warsaw, and his father gave him the village of Zezulińce in Podole; from that time, Pulaski used the title of Starost of Zezulińce.

Casimir Pulaski gathering supporters for the Confederation at Bar. Painting by Korneli Szlegel. A map of the Bar Confederation conflict in Poland between 1768 and 1772, with white areas being controlled by the Confederates. Pulaski at the walls of the Jasna Góra Monastery in 1770, by artist Juliusz Kossak. In 1769, Pulaski's unit was again besieged by numerically superior forces, this time in the old fortress of Okopy Świętej Trójcy, which had served as his base of operations since December the previous year. After a staunch defence, he was able to break the Russian siege. On April 7, he was made the regimentarz of the Kraków Voivodeship.

Despite no decisive military successes, he was able to assemble a 4,000-strong army and deliver it back to a Confederate staging point. This excursion received international notice and gained him a reputation as the most effective military leader in the Bar Confederation. Next, he moved with his unit towards Zamość and — after nearly losing his life to the inferior forces of the future Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov in the disastrous Battle of Orekhowa — on the next day, September 15, he was again defeated at the Battle of Włodawa, with his forces almost completely dispelled. He spent the rest of the year rebuilding his unit in the region of Podkarpacie.

He then departed for Częstochowa. On September 10, along with Walewski, he used subterfuge to take control of the Jasna Góra monastery. On September 18 he met Franciszka z Krasińskich, an aristocrat from the Krasiński family and the wife of Charles of Saxony, Duke of Courland. He impressed her and she became one of his protectors. Around September 22–24 Walewski was made the commandant of Jasna Góra, which slighted Pulaski. Nonetheless, he continued as the de facto commander of Confederate troops stationed in and around Jasna Góra. Pulaski intended to pursue Drewitz, but a growing discord between him and Zaremba prevented this from becoming a real option. The attempt failed, weakening the international reputation of the Confederates. When Pulaski's involvement with the attempted kidnapping became known, the Austrians expelled him from their territories. He spent the following winter and spring in Częstochowa, during which time several of his followers were defeated, captured or killed.

On May 31, 1772, Pulaski, increasingly distanced from other leaders of the Confederation, left the Jasna Góra monastery and went to Silesia in Prussia. The Partition Sejm had been convened by the victors to validate the First Partition.

Poniatowski himself warned Pulaski to stay away from Poland, or risk death. He subsequently recommended that General George Washington accept Pulaski as a volunteer in the Continental Army cavalry. Pulaski departed France from Nantes in June, and arrived in Marblehead, Massachusetts, near Boston, on July 23, 1777. After his arrival, Pulaski wrote to Washington, "I came here, where freedom is being defended, to serve it, and to live or die for it." His subsequent charge averted a disastrous defeat of the Continental Army cavalry, earning him fame in America

As a result, on September 15, 1777, on the orders of Congress, Washington commissioned Pulaski a brigadier general in the Continental Army cavalry. On October 4, Pulaski took part in the Battle of Germantown. He spent the winter of 1777 to 1778 with most of the army at Valley Forge. Pulaski argued that the military operations should continue through the winter, but this idea was rejected by the general staff. In turn, he directed his efforts towards reorganizing the cavalry force, mostly stationed in Trenton.

American officers serving under Pulaski had difficulty taking orders from a foreigner who could scarcely speak English and whose ideas of discipline and tactics differed enormously from those to which they were accustomed. This resulted in friction between the Americans and Pulaski and his fellow Polish officers. There was also discontent in the unit over delays in pay, was, however, retracted by the poet in 1857 due to its ahistorical details. Furthermore, according to the latest research it turns out that the Pulaski banner, which symbolised the legion, was inspired by the colours of the Hungarian national flag (red, white and green) in use since the early 17th century, and was created by the Moravian Lutheran Sisters according to the instructions of Michael Kovats in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in early 1778. The flag embedded cultural history elements reflecting the close Hungarian-Polish friendship and interstate relations back to the centuries.

The "father of the American cavalry" demanded much of his men and trained them in tested cavalry tactics. Pulaski, supported by Michael Kovats, often referred to as the co-founder of the U.S. cavalry, made great efforts to turn their cavalry into an effective force, and the improvement of the Legion's mounted arm drew high praise from the British. Pulaski used his own personal finances when money from Congress was scarce, in order to assure his forces of the finest equipment and personal safety. During the following winter Pulaski was stationed at Minisink, at that time in northwestern New Jersey. General Benjamin Lincoln, commander of the southern army, had led most of the army toward Augusta, Georgia, in a bid to recapture Savannah, which had been captured by the British in late 1778. The British commander, Brigadier General Augustine Prevost, responded to Lincoln's move by launching a raiding expedition from Savannah across the Savannah River. The South Carolina militia fell back before the British advance, and Prevost's force followed them all the way to Charleston. Pulaski arrived just as military leaders were establishing the city's defenses.

When the British advanced on May 11, Pulaski's Legion engaged forward elements of the British force, and was badly mauled in the encounter. The Legion infantry, numbering only about 60 men before the skirmish, was virtually wiped out, and Pulaski was forced to retreat to the safety of the city's guns. Although some historians credit this action with Prevost's decision to withdraw back toward Savannah the next day, despite ongoing negotiations of a possible surrender of Charleston, that decision is more likely based on news Prevost received that Lincoln's larger force was returning to Charleston to face him, and that Prevost's troops had gone further than he had originally intended. One early historian criticised Pulaski's actions during that engagement as "ill-judged, ill-conducted, disgraceful and disastrous". The episode was of minor strategic consequence and did little to enhance the reputation of Pulaski's unit.

Pulaski mortally wounded by grapeshot while leading cavalry charge. Although Pulaski frequently suffered from malaria while stationed in Charleston, he remained in active service. At the beginning of September, Lincoln prepared to launch an attempt to retake Savannah with French assistance. Pulaski was ordered to Augusta, where he was to join forces with General Lachlan McIntosh. Pulaski captured a British outpost near Ogeechee River. His units then acted as an advance guard for the allied French units under Admiral Charles Hector, comte d'Estaing. Pulaski was carried from the field of battle and taken aboard the South Carolina merchant brig privateer Wasp, under the command of Captain Samuel Bulfinch, where he died two days later, having never regained consciousness.

Pulaski never married and had no descendants. Despite his fame, there have long been uncertainties and controversies surrounding both his place and date of birth, and his burial. Many primary sources record a burial at sea. The historical accounts for Pulaski's time and place of burial vary considerably. According to several contemporary accounts there were witnesses, including Pulaski's aide-de-camp, that Pulaski received a symbolic burial in Charleston on October 21, Other witnesses, including Captain Samuel Bulfinch of the Wasp, claimed that the wounded Pulaski was actually later removed from the ship and taken to the Greenwich Plantation in the town of Thunderbolt, near Savannah, where he died and was buried under the supervision of the plantation's owner Jane Bowen, widow of Samuel.

In March 1825, during his grand tour of the United States, Lafayette personally laid the cornerstone for the Casimir Pulaski Monument in Savannah, Georgia.

Exhumation and analysis of remains In 1853, remains found on a bluff above Augustine Creek on Greenwich Plantation were believed to be the general's. These bones were reinterred at the Casimir Pulaski Monument in Savannah, Georgia. They were exhumed in 1996 and examined during a forensic study. The eight-year examination, including DNA analysis, ended inconclusively, although the skeleton was consistent with Pulaski's age and occupation. A healed wound on the skull's forehead was consistent with historical records of an injury Pulaski sustained in battle, as was a bone defect on the left cheekbone, believed to have been caused by a benign tumor. In 2005, the remains were reinterred in a public ceremony with full military honors, including Pulaski's induction into the Georgia Military Hall of Fame. The skeleton has a number of typically female features, which has led to the hypothesis that Pulaski may have been female or intersex. A documentary based on the Smithsonian study suggests that Pulaski's hypothesised intersex condition could have been caused by congenital adrenal hyperplasia, where a fetus with female chromosomes is exposed to a high level of testosterone in utero and develops partially male genitals. This analysis was based on the skeleton's female pelvis, facial structure and jaw angle, in combination with the fact that Pulaski identified as and lived as male.

However, there is no conclusive argument or evidence that Pulaski was intersex. The question remains unsettled due to the limited understanding of how an intersex condition might be revealed in the analysis of a skeleton. There is no way to prove that Pulaski was born intersex without a DNA test. (The DNA needed to verify biological sex and intersex variance is usually not available from skeletal remains, due to degradation.)

Tributes and commemoration

United States postage stamp featuring General Casimir Pulaski. Issue of 1931, 2 cents.

The United States has long commemorated Pulaski's contributions to the American Revolutionary War; on October 29, 1779, the United States Congress passed a resolution that a monument should be dedicated to him, but the first monument to him, the Casimir Pulaski Monument in Savannah, Georgia, was not built until 1854. A bust of Pulaski was added to a collection of other busts of American heroes at United States Capitol in 1867. On May 11, 1910, US President William Taft revealed a Congress-sponsored General Casimir Pulaski statue. After a previous attempt failed,

Statue of Pulaski at the Kazimierz Pułaski Museum in Warka, Poland. In Poland, in 1793 Pulaski's relative, Antoni Pułaski, obtained a cancellation of his brother's sentence from 1773. He has been mentioned in the literary works of numerous Polish authors, including Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. Adolf Nowaczyński wrote a drama "Pułaski w Ameryce" (Pulaski in America) in 1917.

The Pulaski Bridge in New York City links Brooklyn to Queens; the Pulaski Skyway in Northern New Jersey links Jersey City to Newark, and the Pulaski Highway traverses the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

Michigan designated US Highway 112 (now US 12) as Pulaski Memorial Highway in 1935.

There are also a number of educational, academic, and Polish-American institutions named after him. and a side-wheel steam gunboat, USS Pulaski. A Polish frigate, ORP Generał Kazimierz Pułaski, is also named after Pulaski.

A statue commemorating Pulaski stands at the eastern end of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. There is an equestrian statue of Pulaski in Roger Williams Park in Providence, Rhode Island, as well as one in the center of Pulaski park in Manchester, New Hampshire. A statue by Granville W. Carter depicting Pulaski on a rearing horse signaling a forward charge with a sword in his right hand is erected in Hartford, Connecticut.

In popular culture Michigan-born songwriter Sufjan Stevens released a song called "Casimir Pulaski Day" on his album Illinois. The song interweaves his memories of a friend's battle with bone cancer with an account of the holiday. An account of Pulaski's death and burial is used as the background and setting for the family reunion of two POV characters in Diana Gabaldon's ninth main Outlander novel, Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (2021). Her historical observations and inspirations are in her author's notes. Chicago punk band Big Black released a song named after Casimir Pulaski, titled "Kasimir S. Pulaski Day", on their album Songs About Fucking (1987).