oldiers called him. Invariably he spent some part of his day among his
beloved peasants, and daily he recited with them public prayers. Often
at night he and they together went up to the teeth of the Russian
batteries on expeditions to spike the cannon. His inseparable companion,
Niemcewicz, who slept with him in his tent till the-end came, describes
how the silence of these nights was broken hideously by the wild, shrill
cry of the reapers, by the sudden roar of the cannon and crack of
gunfire, by the groans of the wounded.

The defence of Warsaw was but half of the task that fell to Kosciuszko.
The minutest particulars were dealt with by him personally. He wrote
letter after letter, commandeering everything in the country for the
national cause: requisitioning linen from the churches to clothe his
soldiers, who in the beginning of the siege were half naked, sending out
his directions to the leaders of the Rising in the provinces, issuing
proclamations, maintaining an enormous correspondence on affairs--it is
said that the number of letters from his pen or signed by him at this
time is almost incredible--giving audiences, and conducting the civil
government of Poland.

Early in August the Prussian general, in a letter to Orlowski,
Kosciuszko's old friend, whom he had made commandant of Warsaw, summoned
the city to surrender, while the King of Prussia addressed himself in
similar language to Stanislas Augustus, whose part in the historical
drama of the siege was that of an inert spectator. Kosciuszko drily
replied, "Warsaw is not in the necessity to be compelled to surrender."
The Polish King replied, not drily, to the same effect. The fortunes of
the Rising in the rest of the country were fluctuating, and in
Lithuania, where Wilno fell, hopeless. In the beginning of September
exultation ran through Warsaw at the news that every province of Great
Poland had risen against their Prussian conquerors. Kosciuszko
characteristically took up the general joy as the text of a manifesto to
the citizens of Warsaw, warning them that Prussia would, in the strength
of desperation, redouble her efforts against them, and urging them to a
dogged resistance. On the 4th of September, shortly after the Poles had
by a most gallant attack carried off a signal triumph, when Warsaw was
preparing for a fresh and violent bombardment, Kosciuszko wrote in haste
to the President: "Beloved Zakrzewski, to-day, before daybreak, we shall
certainly be