A Friend of Liberty and His Unfaithful Executor

In Maine and Massachusetts, today is a holiday. Patriots' Day marks the anniversary of The Shot Heard Round the World in April, 1775. Eleven months later, the British evacuated Boston. A few months after that, in July, 1776, the United States proclaimed its independence. The following month, a young European, recruited in France by Silas Deane and Ben Franklin, arrived in this country.

Thaddeus Kosciusko served the American cause so well that by war's end he was a brigadier general. Our grateful nation awarded him citizenship, a grant of land and a considerable sum of money. Thaddeus clearly believed that Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal," were the greatest ever written. He used the money to buy freedom for slaves.

Thaddeus became a close friend of Jefferson, and together they hatched a plan to change the course of history. As recounted here, the plan involved Thaddeus's will, and the will's executor was to be Jefferson. Alas, after Thaddeus died in 1817, Jefferson refused to serve.

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If Kosciusko were easier to spell, Americans would remember Thaddeus as fondly as we do the marquis de La Fayette. If you know as little about him as I did, read up on this remarkable American, Belarusian, Lithuanian, and Polish national hero.