nihilation, Kosciuszko thrust
back the attack of "the whole Russian army"--the quotation is his--with
heavy; loss to the Russians and little to the Poles. It was, thus
Poniatowski declares in his report to the King, thanks "to the good and
circumspect dispositions of General Kosciuszko that our retreat was
continued in unbroken order." The subsequent safe passage of the army
over the river is again ascribed to Kosciuszko. And so we arrive at the
famous day of Dubienka, fought on the banks of the Bug between the
marshes of Polesie and Galicia, which covered Kosciuszko's name with
glory, and which by tragic paradox saw the end of that stage of his
nation's hope for freedom.

Kosciuszko has left a manuscript account, written in the nature of a
rough sketch, of the Ukraine campaign.[1] It passed into the keeping of
Stanislas Potocki, one of the great pioneers of educational reform in
Poland, not to be confounded with his ill-famed namesake, Felix Potocki.
In it Kosciuszko gives with brevity and characteristic modesty the
account of the battle: how, with Poniatowski too far off to render
assistance, and the safety of the whole Polish army depending upon
Kosciuszko, "left to himself," to cite his own words--he invariably
employs the third person--he threw up defences and prepared for the
Russian attack. Through the day of July 18th he stood with five thousand
Poles and eight cannon against a Russian army of twenty thousand
soldiers and forty cannon, repelling the enemy with sanguinary loss to
the latter. One of his officers who fought by his side told afterwards
how he had seen Kosciuszko in the hottest fire calm and collected as
though taking a stroll. The battle that has been called the Polish
Thermopylae only closed when towards evening the Russian commander,
Kachowski, violated neutral territory and fell upon the Poles from the
side of Galicia, so that, hopelessly outnumbered, they were compelled to
retreat. The retreat through the forest on a pitch-dark night was led by
Kosciuszko, says an eyewitness, "with the utmost coolness and in the
greatest order," directing an incessant fire on the pursuing Russians
that told heavily upon them. Kniaziewicz, whom we last saw in a less
stern moment of Kosciuszko's life, here played a gallant part.

[Footnote 1: Printed in Edward Raczynski's _Pictures of Poles and of
Poland in the Eighteenth Century_. Poznan, 1841 (Polish).]

It has been pointed out that the honours of the day fe