Thaddeus Kosciusko and his Fortifications at West Point

Introduction

Kociuszko joined the northern army at Ticonderoga, where he sought to establish a wide range of fortifications on the hills surrounding the fort and especially to make Mount Defiance a main line of defense. His advice went unheeded, and a British army under General John Burgoyne, by emplacing big guns on Mount Defiance, was able to capture Fort Ticonderoga on 5 July 1777. As engineer to the northern army under General Horatio Gates, Kociuszko selected the battlefield and supervised fortifications that contributed to the American victory at Saratoga on 17 October 1777. This paper discusses Thaddeus Kosciusko and his fortifications at West Point in a concise and comprehensive way.

Thaddeus Kosciusko at West Point

Lewis (pp. 56-67) mentions that from March 1778 to June 1780 Kociuszko was responsible for building the defenses at West Point. He cultivated a garden that is still maintained at the U.S. Military Academy as "Kociuszko's Garden." When Gates assumed the command of the southern army, he invited Kociuszko to be chief of engineers for the Southern Department. Kociuszko arrived in the South after Gates's disastrous defeat at Camden, South Carolina. Gates was replaced by General Nathanael Greene, with whom Kociuszko served during the remainder of the war (Lewis, pp. 56-67). During the winter of 1780-1781 Kociuszko had charge of reconnaissance of the Catawba River and supervised transportation of Greene's army as it raced to and crossed the Dan River. One of Kociuszko's feats was the building of wagons, with detachable wheels, that could also serve as boats. At the unsuccessful siege of Ninety-Six, South Carolina, 22 May-19 June 1781, he was criticized for convincing Greene to concentrate the attack on the enemy's strongest position and for erecting siege works too close to the enemy's fortifications. During 1782, near Charleston, South Carolina, Kociuszko acted primarily as a cavalry officer. At war's end he was brevetted a brigadier general (13 Oct. 1783). He helped found the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783 (Lewis, pp. 56-67).

In summer 1784 Kociuszko returned to Poland and settled at Siechnowicze in the role of a small landlord. In October 1789 he received a commission as major general in the Polish army. He led a radical reform of the Polish army, recruiting peasants as regular soldiers. Leading Polish forces in the war with Russia that began in 1792, he managed to save the Polish army from annihilation at Dubienka, 18 July 1792. King Stanislaw Augustus made him a lieutenant general and conferred upon him the citation of Virtuti Militari, Poland's highest military honor.

With the defeat of the Polish army, Kociuszko went into exile at Leipzig, Saxony. Returning to Poland in 1794, he assumed military and political leadership for Polish independence. He wrote and promulgated the "Act of Insurrection," similar to America's Declaration of Independence, and also the "Manifesto of Polanliec," (Muller, pp. 34-45) which called for freeing the serfs. He was victorious at the battle of Raclawice, 4 April 1794, and turned back the Prussians at the siege of ...