KOSCIUSKO, THADDEUS, was born in 1756, of a noble but not wealthy family of Lithuania. After studying first at Warsaw, and afterwards at Paris, for the military profession, he was made a captain iu the Polish army. He afterwards returned to Paris, and volunteered to accompany La Fayette aud others, who were going to assist the revolted American colonies against England. In America be distin guished himself by his bravery, obtained the rank of general officer In the American ,army with a pension, and after the end of the war returned to his native country. In 1789 he was made major-general in the Polish army. He served with distioetion in the campaign of 1792 against the Russians, but King Stanislaus having soon after sub mitted to the will of the Empress Catharine, and Poland being occupied by Russian troops, Kosciusko, with several other officers, left the service and withdrew to Germany. When the revolution broke out in Poland at the beginning of 1794, Kosciusko was put at the head of the national forces, which were hastily assembled, and in great measure ware destitute of arms and artillery. In April 1794 be defeated a numerically superior Russian force at Raclawics. Again in the month of Jena he attacked the united Russians and Prussians near Warsaw, but was defeated, and obliged to retire into his iotreuched camp before the capital. Ile then defended that city for two months against the combined forces of 'twain and Prussia, and obliged them to raise the siege. Fresh Russian armies however having advanced from the interior under Suwarrow and Fersen, Kosciusko marched against them with 21,000 men. The Russians were nearly three times the number, aud ou the 10th of October the battle of Macziewice took place about 50 miles from Warsaw. After a desperate struggle the Poles were routed, and Kosciusko, being wounded, was taken prisoner, exclaiming that there was an end of Poland. The storming of Praga by Suwarrow and the capitulation of Warsaw soon followed.
Kosciusko was taken to St. Petersburg as a state prisoner, but being afterwards released by the Emperor Paul he repaired to Americ t, and afterwards returned to France about 1793. Napoleon 1. repeatedly endeavoured to engage Kosciusko to enter his service, as Dombrowski and other Polish officers had done, and to use the influence of his name among his countrymen to excite them against Russia ; but Kosciusko saw through the selfish ambition of the conqueror, and declined appearing again on the political stage. A proclamation to his countrymen which the French ‘Moniteue ascribed to him in 1806 was a fabrication. He continued to live iu retirement in France uutil 1814, when ha wrote to the Emperor Alexander recommeuding to him the fate of his country. In 1815, after the establishment of the new kingdom of Poland, Kosciusko wrote again to tho emperor thanking him for what he had done for the Poles, but entreating him to extend the benefit of nationality to the Lithuanians also,. and offering fur this boon to devote the remainder of his life to his service. Soon after ha wrote to Prince Czartorinaki, testifying likewise his gratitude for the revival of the Polish name, and his disappointment at the crippled extent of the new kingdom, which however he attributed "not to the intention of the emperor, but to the policy of his cabinet, and con cluded by saying that as he could not be of any further use to his country, he was going to end his days in Switzerland." (Oginski, `Mdmoires our la Pologne et lee Polonais,' Paris, 1827.) In 1816 Kosciusko settled at Soleure, in Switzerland, where ha applied himself to agricultural pursuits. He died in October 1817, in consequence of a fall from his horse. His remains were removed to Cracow by order of Alexander, and placed in the vaults of the kings of Poland, and a monument was raised to his memory.