A barn in the vicinity of the city has long been shown as the place
where Kosciuszko slept the night before he entered Cracow. The Polish
general, Madalinski, who by a ruse had evaded the Russian order to
disarm, was the first to rise. At the head of his small force, followed
by a hot Russian pursuit, he triumphantly led his soldiers down towards
Cracow. At the news of his approach the Russian garrison evacuated the
town, and Kosciuszko entered its walls a few hours after the last
Russian soldier had left it, at midday on March 23 1794. It had been
intended to convene the meeting of the citizens at the town hall on that
same day; but the Act of the proclamation of the Rising proved to be so
erroneously printed that it could not be published, mainly because
Kosciuszko was not an adept at putting his ideas into writing, and the
numerous corrections were too much for the printers. The night was spent
by Kosciuszko in rewriting the manifesto which was to travel all over
Poland, which was to be proclaimed from the walls and pulpits of Polish
town and village, and despatched to the governments of Europe. The room
yet remains where he passed those hours in the house of General Wodzicki
who, when commanded by Russia to disband his regiments, had at
Kosciuszko's instigation secretly kept them together, paying them out of
his own pocket, in readiness for the Rising.

The morning of March 24th dawned With Wodzicki and several other
soldiers, Kosciuszko assisted at a low Mass in the Capuchin church,
where the officiating priest blessed the leader's sword. "God grant me
to conquer or die," were Kosciuszko's words, as he received the weapon
from the monk's hand. At ten o'clock he quietly walked to the town hall.
From all quarters of the city dense throngs had poured into the
marketplace, and pressed outside the town hall, overflowing on to its
steps, surging into its rooms. In front of his soldiers Kosciuszko stood
before the crowds on the stone now marked by a memorial tablet, upon
which on each anniversary of March 24th the Poles lay wreaths. That day,
that scene, remain engraved for ever among the greatest of Poland's
memories. As far as Kosciuszko's gaze rested he saw his countrymen and
countrywomen with eyes turned to him as to the deliverer of themselves
and of their country, palpitating for the moment that he was about to
announce, many of them wearing his portrait and carrying banners with
the inscriptions: "Freedom or Death,