The New Student's Reference Work/Pulaski, Casimir

Pulas′ki, Cas′imir, a Polish count and general who fell in the American Revolutionary war, was born in Podolia, March 4, 1748. On account of the active part he took in the Polish war against Russia he was stripped of his estates and outlawed in the partition of Poland in 1772. In 1777 he offered his services to the American colonies in their contest against England, and for his gallant conduct at the battle of Brandywine was given a brigade of cavalry, which he commanded until March, 1778. In May, 1779, he entered Charleston at the head of Pulaski's Legion, a corps of lancers and light infantry which, he had organized, and held it until the place was relieved; he afterward followed and harassed the British until they left South Carolina. At the siege of Savannah (1779), on the 9th of October, he fell in an assault at the head of the cavalry and died two days later.