Statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko

Brigadier General Thaddeus Kościuszko is a bronze statue honoring Polish military figure and engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko. The sculpture was dedicated in 1910, the third of four statues in Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., to honor foreign-born heroes of the American Revolutionary War. Born in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1746, Kościuszko later received education at a Jesuit school before attending the Corps of Cadets in Warsaw. He later traveled to France where he studied in military academy libraries and adopted views of human liberty during the Age of Enlightenment. He moved to the Thirteen Colonies in 1776, where the war with the Kingdom of Great Britain had already begun. Kościuszko served as an engineer in the Continental Army, earning the praise of his superiors, including General George Washington. After his important assistance during the war, Kościuszko traveled back to his homeland, where he led the Kościuszko Uprising against Prussia and the Russian Empire. He was unsuccessful and spent time in prison for two years. He was freed on the condition he return to the United States, which he did in 1797. He returned to Europe the following year using an alias, and died in Switzerland in 1817. In the early 1900s, the Polish National Alliance asked the U.S. Congress if a memorial to Casimir Pulaski could be erected in Lafayette Square. President Theodore Roosevelt

Monument data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).