The Peasant Prince

Thaddeus Kosciuszko arrived in the colonies with little other than an industrious spirit and a genius for engineering. He soon became indispensable to the American Revolution, designed the fortifications at Philadelphia and West Point - it was his plans that Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British - devised battle plans at Saratoga, and led a ring of Black spies in the South. Afterward, Kosciuszko returned to his native Poland, led an uprising against czarist Russia, and became an international celebrity. With an historical cast from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Catherine the Great and Napoleon, this wide-sweeping narrative reveals the life and times of a long overlooked Leader.