Casimir Pulaski

"I came here, where freedom is being defended, to serve it, and to live or die for it..."

Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779) was member of the Polish nobility. He was born in 1745 near the small Polish town of Warka. As a soldier he fought against the Russian tsarist empire in Poland taking part in an alliance against them named the Confederation of Bar (Konfederacja Barska). Pulaski was subsequently outlawed in the country after the first Partition of Poland in 1772.

In the same year he fled to Turkey and later to France. He offered his services to Benjamin Franklin in October 1776 and landed in Boston in July 1777. He later fought in the American War of Independence alongside George Washington. For his achievements at Brandywine Creek Pulaski was given command of a brigade of cavalry. In 1779 he organised the so called Pulaski's Legion and entered Charleston, which he the held until relieved by allied forces. He took part in the Siege of Savannah in 1779, where during a charge of cavalry he was wounded in the thigh. He died two days later on October 11th, 1779.