gunners to pieces. Again and again Dombrowski, who was later to lead
the Polish Napoleonic legions, and whose name stands at the head of the
famous patriotic song so beloved of Poland, would at Kosciuszko's
laconic order, "Harass the enemy," sally forth on some daring
expedition. Or we hear of a sixteen hours' battle, the Poles, under a
terrific fire, successfully driving the Prussians from height to height,
Kosciuszko himself commanding Kilinski's burgher regiment. No shirkers
were to be found in Warsaw. Under the fearful Prussian bombardment the
citizens coolly put out the fires, and the children ran into the streets
to pick up the spent balls and take them to the arsenal, receiving a few
pence for each one that they brought in. Once as Kosciuszko and
Niemcewicz stood on the ramparts with cannon-balls pattering about them,
Niemcewicz heard a voice shouting into his ear through the din: "You are
coming to supper with me, aren't you?"[1] The host who had the presence
of mind to arrange a party under these circumstances was the President
of Warsaw.

[Footnote 1: J. Niemcewicz, _Recollections of My Times_.]

Even those who will not allow that Kosciuszko was a military commander of
the first capacity acknowledge that the defence of Warsaw was a
magnificent feat. He was its life and soul. Organizing, encouraging,
seeing into the closest details, the somewhat small but strongly built
figure of the commander, clad in the peasant _sukman_ worn, after his
example, by all his staff, including the "citizen General Poniatowski,"
was to be met with at every turn, his face lit up by that fire of
enthusiasm and consecration to a great cause that confers upon its rough
lineaments their strange nobility. From the 13th of July till the 6th of
September, when the enemy abandoned the siege, Kosciuszko never once
took off his clothes, merely flinging himself on a little heap of straw
in his tent on his return from his rounds to catch what sleep he could.
His very presence inspired soldiers and civilians alike to redoubled
ardour. The sweetness of his smile, the gentle and kindly word of the
leader who yet knew how to be obeyed and who was famed for his courage
in the field, left a memory for life with all who saw him. Passionate
admiration, the undying love of men's hearts, were his. "Death or
Victory is Kosciuszko's watchword, therefore it is ours," said a Polish
officer who served under him. "Father Tadeusz" was the name by which his
s