A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Jagiello, Appolonia
JAGIELLO, APPOLONIA,
Distinguished for her heroic patriotism, was born about the year 1825, in Lithuania, a part of the land where Thaddeus Kosciusko spent his first days. She was educated at Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland—a city filled with monuments and memorials sadly recalling to the mind of every Pole the past glory of his native land. There, and in Warsaw and Vienna, she passed the days of her early girlhood.
She was about nineteen when the attempt at revolution of 1846 broke out at Cracow, and in this struggle for freedom Mademoiselle Jagiello took an active part. She was seen on horseback, in the picturesque costume of the Polish soldier, in the midst of the patriots who first planted the white eagle and the flag of freedom on the castles of the ancient capital of her country, and was one of the handful of heroes who fought the battle near Podgorzc, against a tenfold stronger enemy.
After the Polish uprising, which commenced in Cracow, was suppressed, Mademoiselle Jagiello reassumed female dress, and remained undetected for a few weeks in that city. From thence she removed to Warsaw, and remained there and in the neighbouring country, in quiet retirement among her friends. But the struggle of 1848 found her again at Cracow, in the midst of the combatants. Alas! that effort was but a dream—it accomplished nothing—it perished like all other European attempts at revolutions of that year, so great in grand promises, so mean in fulfilment.
Mademoiselle Jagiello then left Cracow tor Vienna, where she arrived in time to take part in the engagement at the faubourg Widen. Her chief object in going to Vienna was to inform herself of the character of that struggle, and to carry news to the Hungarians, who were then in the midst of a war, which she and her countrymen regarded as involving the liberation of her beloved Poland, and presaging the final regeneration of Europe. With the aid of devoted friends, she reached Presburg safely, and from that place, in the disguise of a peasant, was conveyed by the peasantry carrying provisions for the army, to the village of St. Paul
After many dangers and hardships in crossing the country occupied by the Austrians, and swimming on horseback two rivers, she at last, on the 15th. of August, 1848, reached the Hungarian camp, near the village of Eneszey, just before the battle there fought, in which the Austrians were defeated, and lost General Wist. This was the first Hungarian battle in which our heroine took part as volunteer. She was soon promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and, at the request of her Hungarian friends, took charge of a hospital in Comorn. Whilst there, she joined, as a volunteer, the expedition of twelve thousand troops under the command of the gallant General Klapka, which made a sally, and took Raab. She returned in safety to Comorn, where she remained, superintending the hospital, until the capitulation of the fortress.
She went to the United States in December, 1849, with Governor Ladislas Ujhazy and his family, where she and her heroic friends received a most enthusiastic welcome.