Kazimierz Pulaski | Biography & Facts (2024)

Kazimierz Pułaski (born March 6, 1745, Warsaw, Poland—died October 11/15, 1779, aboard ship between Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.) was a Polish patriot and U.S. colonial army officer, hero of the Polish anti-Russian insurrection of 1768 (the Confederation of Bar) and of the American Revolution.

The son of Józef Pułaski (1704–69), one of the originators of the Confederation of Bar, the young Pułaski distinguished himself in the defense of Berdichev (1768) and Częstochowa (1770–71) against the Russians. He also unsuccessfully attempted to kidnap King Stanisław II to the confederates’ camp (October 1771) and was falsely accused of trying to murder the king. After the Prussian and Austrian invasion of Poland in the spring of 1772, Pułaski left Częstochowa for Saxony; he later moved to France and lived in financial straits.

In December 1776 in Paris, Pułaski met the American statesman Benjamin Franklin, who recommended him to Gen. George Washington. Pułaski landed in America in June 1777. In Washington’s army he served at Brandywine, was made general and chief of cavalry by Congress, and fought at Germantown and in the winter campaign of 1777–78. The Pułaski Legion, a mixed corps of cavalry and infantry that he formed in 1778, exploited his experience in guerrilla warfare. In May 1779 he defended Charleston. Wounded at Savannah on October 9, 1779, he died aboard the Wasp.

The date of his death and the location of his body are disputed. His aide-de-camp testified that he died on October 11 and that his body was buried at sea. Another account—discovered in a letter written by the captain of the Wasp and corroborated by a statement by the widow of the man who built Pułaski’s coffin—puts his death on October 15, aboard the ship at anchor in a river several miles from Savannah. According to that account, his corpse was brought ashore and buried at a nearby plantation. A descendant of the plantation’s owner is said to have exhumed the remains in 1852 and reinterred them beneath a monument to Pulaski in Savannah in 1853. Though DNA analysis conducted in the 1990s following a further disinterment was inconclusive, the skeleton is consistent with Pulaski’s age and occupation. A comparison of the skull to portraits of Pulaski further suggests that the remains are his. A small tumour on his face, noticeable in several paintings, lines up with apparent bone scarring on the cheek of the skull. Further investigation in the 2010s—including reanalysis of data and new DNA lab work—led researchers to conclude that Pulaski was likely intersex. Their findings indicated that, while Pulaski identified as a man, in terms of biology he did not conform to binary definitions of male or female.