all pass through Philadelphia. I shall wait on your
Excellency to pay due respects in a few days."[1]

A French engineer took Kosciuszko's place, and the latter had not long
left when the treachery of the new commandant of West Point, Arnold, was
disclosed by the capture of Andre. Before Kosciuszko had time to reach
the southern army his old friend Gates was defeated at Camden, and in
consequence disgraced. Nathaniel Greene, after Washington the greatest
general of the American Revolution, was appointed his successor. While
awaiting Greene's arrival to take up his command Kosciuszko was for some
time in Virginia among the planters. He thus saw the coloured slaves at
close quarters, and was brought face to face with the horrors of the
slave trade. It was probably then that, with his strong susceptibility to
every form of human suffering, he learnt that profound sympathy for the
American negro which, seventeen years later, dictated his parting
testament to the New World.

[Footnote 1: Jared Sparks, _Writings of George Washington_.]

Through the whole campaign of the Carolinas, the most brilliant and the
most hardly won of the American War, Kosciuszko was present. When Greene
arrived he found himself at the head of an army that was starving. His
troops had literally not enough clothing required for the sake of
decency. He was without money, without resources. He resolved to retire
upon the unknown Pedee river. Immediately upon his arrival he sent
Kosciuszko up the river with one guide to explore its reaches and to
select a suitable spot for a camp of rest, charging him with as great
celerity as he could compass. Kosciuszko rapidly acquitted himself of a
task that was no easy matter in that waste of forest and marsh. In the
words of an American historian: "The surveying of the famous Kosciuszko
on the Pedee and Catawba had a great influence on the further course of
the campaign." The campaign was carried on in a wild country of deep,
roaring rivers, broken by falls, and often visited by sudden floods. The
frequently impassable swamps breathed out poisonous exhalations.
Rattle-snakes and other deadly reptiles lurked by the wayside. Great
were the hardships that Kosciuszko, together with the rest of the army,
endured. There were no regular supplies of food, tents and blankets ran
out, the soldiers waded waist-deep through rushing waters. Often invited
to Greene's table, where the general entertained his officers with a
kind