Across Three Countries in Search of a Revolutionary War Hero

In Australia the tallest mountain peak is called Mount Kosciuszko. The mountain rises some 7300 feet above sea level, into the skies above the Kosciuszko National Park. It’s part of the Snowy Mountains in the state of New South Wales; in an area Australians know as the High Country.

The mountain received its name in 1840 after Polish explorer Pawel Strzelecki ascended (there is some debate about whether he actually climbed this specific peak or one nearby) and named it after his friend the Polish freedom fighter Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who had died some twenty years beforehand.

His friend also happened to be a hero of America’s Revolutionary War and designer of West Point, the new nation’s first military academy. Kosciuszko’s fame may have dimmed in Poland and the USA with the passage of time, but thanks to his friend Strzelecki it’s well known to Australians. Never mind that they know the name mostly as that of the highest point in their nation, and less so for the man with the cross-continental military prowess for which he was celebrated by previous generations.

Journalist and author Anthony Sharwood is the writer of two books on the High Country and out of the experience of writing those books came his curiosity about the man for whom the mountain was named. This book, Kosciuszko, is the result of that curiosity.

Sharwood sets out to follow the story of Tadeusz Kosciuszko first in the United States, then in Poland, and finally into Australia, a land the military leader never travelled to. While the book does hit the highlights of Kosciuszko’s life story, it’s really more travelogue than biography. But Sharwood binds the travel and the biography together under the overarching theme of Kosciuszko’s integrity and commitment to equality, and how he might feel about events of our day in places that honor him or bear his name.

It seems that Kosciuszko held an unwavering commitment to the equality of all people throughout his life. In his native Poland he argued for full citizenship for peasants and Jews, then two groups of people with few civil rights. His integrity was celebrated in the US and Poland long after his death.

Then there is the story of his American will. Kosciuszko empathized with the enslaved Blacks in America and urged his friend Thomas Jefferson to free his own slaves. While in America shortly before his death Kosciuszko drafted a will with then Vice President Jefferson’s help that directed that his sizable American holdings (in the form of his accumulated war pension) be used by Jefferson to free his own and other’s slaves. Jefferson wrote that Kosciuszko was “the truest son of liberty I have even known.”

Jefferson was meant to administer the will. But after Kosciuszko died he hemmed and hawed, and after several years finally relinquished his role as the estate’s executor. The end result is that Kosciuszko’s money was frittered away on legal and administrative fees while Jefferson never freed his slaves.

So in this book you’ll learn things like how well Kosciuszko is remembered in his own land, what honors have been left behind commemorating him in the US, and how the potential for returning his namesake mountain to an Aboriginal name has prompted a close relationship between Australian Poles and the Aboriginal people of the High Country (what that name might be is not a settled question among the groups of Aboriginal peoples with a history in the area).

I enjoyed Sharwood’s book and learned a lot about a Revolutionary War figure about whom I previously had known very little. I’d definitely recommend it for those interested in Revolutionary War figures. I bought the book over the holidays while in Australia where we are spending the northern hemisphere winter. While writing this review I learned that the paperback will be available in the United States in June while the ebook seems to be available now.

RATING: Three and a half Stars ⭐⭐⭐🌠

RATING COMMENTS: Australian author Anthony Sharwood was inspired by his time in and around his nation’s highest peak, Mt. Kosciuszko, to dig into the story of the mountain’s namesake - the Polish military leader who fought in the American Revolution and designed West Point.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I bought a copy of this book at a QBD bookstore in Brisbane, Australia. The paperback edition of the book will be in the United States on Tuesday, June 10th, while the ebook seems to be available now.