When he returned to Poland in 1784, Kosciuszko wrote that "the affairs of the republick as well as mine are in a very horrid situation." He lived a quiet and inactive life in his home village. But the reforms of the Great Diet of 1788 brought hope that his country could follow America's example and throw off foreign domination. The Diet provided for an enlarged people's army, and Kosciuszko accepted a General's commission. When the new Constitution of May 3, 1791 was enacted, he and his command were among the first to swear allegiance to it.

The rising spirit of Independence brought repression by the Russian Empress, Catharine the Great, whose troops invaded Poland in 1792. Kosciuszko was in the thick of the resistance. The King of Poland bestowed upon him the highest of Polish Military honors, the cross of Virtuti Militari in July, 1792. Yet only a few months later the same King decided to appease the Russians and ordered an end to Polish resistance. Kosciuszko and many other officers resigned, went into exile in the German city of Leipzig and began planning rebellion.

When Russia and Prussia agreed upon a second partition of Poland in 1794, the exiles felt they could wait no longer. Crossing the frontier, they made their way to Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland. There on March 24, 1794-a date comparable to our July 4. 1776 in the United States-a great throng in the marketplace at Cracow proclaimed Poland's Act of Insurrection. The Act denounced the tyrannies of Catharine the Great and King Frederick William, of Prussia, in much the same style that the Declaration of Independence recited oppressive acts of Britain's George III.

The Act of Insurrection named Kosciuszko commander of the people's army and temporary dictator of the state until the war should be won. He took an oath "not to use the power entrusted to him for any personal oppression, but only... for the defense of the integrity of the boundaries, the regaining of the independence of the nation and the founding of universal freedom."

Unlike traditional European armies, Kosciuszko's force was not made up entirely of professional soldiers but included thousands of Polish peasants, some armed only with their scythes. Kosciuszko became known as "Leader of the Scythebearers." He adopted as his uniform the peasant's cap and the white coat of the people of Cracow.

For a short time, the Insurrection achieved unbelievable success. Superior Russian forces were defeated at Warsaw and at Raclawice. Paintings of scythebearers successfully charging the cannon of the enemy are as common in Polish history as American pictures of the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord. But spirit alone could not overcome the might of armament, and no foreign ally came to Kosciuszko's aid. In the savage battle of Maciejowice on October 10, 1794, Kosciuszko's army was crushed. He himself was seriously wounded, captured and taken a prisoner to Russia. Crippled by severe injuries to head and thigh, he remained in Russian custody for more than two years, most of the time under what amounted to house arrest in the Orlow Palace in St. Petersburg.

As soon as the new Czar, Paul I, succeeded Catharine in December, 1796, Kosciuszko was freed and presented with gifts including valuable Russian furs. The American diplomat, Gouverneur Morris, was in Vienna at that time and recorded:

"The Emperor took his son to the apartment where Kosciuszko lay ill. He told the prisoner that he saw in him a man of honor who had done his duty, and from whom he asked no other security but his word that he would never act against him.

Kosciuszko attempted to rise, but the Emperor forbade him; sat half an hour and conversed with him, told his son to esteem the unhappy prisoner, who was immediately released - the guard taken away. At the same time, expresses were sent off into Siberia, and ten thousand Poles confined there received passports and money to bring them home."

The price Kosciuszko paid for the freedom of his soldiers was exile for himself. He was never again to return to Poland. He determined to make a visit to America and he considered settling permanently in what he called "my second country."

Kosciuszko's fight for the freedom of his nation brought him honor and tribute around the world. He was admired as a romantic hero. During the Insurrection newspapers and magazines, especially in the United States, carried jubilant stories of his triumphs and sympathetic accounts of his defeats. Upon his release from prison, he was welcomed everywhere. Sonnets to him were written by Keats and Coleridge. Byron, too, penned lines about him. A novel, Thaddeus of Warsaw became widely popular. "The Martyr of Liberty," he was called.

On leaving Russia, Kosciuszko was accompanied by the young Polish author and statesman, Julian Niemcewicz, who had served Kosciuszko in the Insurrection and had likewise been imprisoned Also in the party was a servant whose duty it was to carry the crippled Kosciuszko about. They went first to Sweden and then to England, spending six months leisurely before undertaking the ocean crossing to the United States.

Niemcewicz was an intelligent observer and a faithful diarist. He wrote day-by-day accounts of his travels with Kosciuszko. They were greeted by distinguished citizens, presented with gifts and testimonials of esteem. Kosciuszko portraits were engraved and widely sold. So were lockets, rings, tableware and other objects with the hero's likeness or his initials.

The Russian Czar sent extraordinary orders to London where the Russian Minister arranged for a physical examination of Kosciuszko by a team of ten outstanding British doctors, including the personal physician of the King of England. After the examination in June, 1797, the physicians wrote out and signed a five page letter reporting Kosciuszko's condition, prescribing treatment for him. This was prepared for Dr. Benjamin Rush, the celebrated Philadelphia man of medicine, and is still among the Rush papers of the Library Company of Philadelphia:

General Kosciuszko received a wound at the lower part of the hind head, with a blunt Sabre, which both bruised, and most probably divided the Nerve, upon the right side that supplies the posterior portion of the scalp with Sensibility- Since that time the Scalp at the upper and posterior part has been without feeling...

The Paralytic state of the Thigh and Leg is owing to another wound he received at the same time in the Hip, with a Cossack pike. - This instrument had penetrated so deep as to divide, or injure extremely, the Sciatic Nerve...

Kosciuszko was visited in his room in an undistinguished London hotel by the United States Ambassador. The American-born artist Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, visited Kosciuszko and painted a portrait of him on his couch. The Whig Club of England presented a costly sword. Citizens at the port of Bristol staged a procession in his honor and he was presented with an expensive set of silver, each piece engraved "The Friends of Liberty in Bristol to the Gallant Kosciuszko, 1797." He stayed at the home of the American consul, which building to this day bears a plaque commemorating the fact. And when he sailed on June 19, 1797 on the ship Adriana thousands lined the shore, cheering and waving handkerchiefs.