[1] K. Bartoszewicz, History of Kościuszko's Insurrection.
The Polish army was badly broken at Racławice, and Kościuszko's immediate affair was its reorganization; but the moral effect of the victory was enormous. Polish nobles opened their private armouries and brought out the family weapons. Labourers armed themselves with spades and shovels. Women fought with pikes. The name of Kościuszko was alone enough by now to gather men to his side. "Kościuszko! Freedom! Our country!" became the morning and the evening greeting between private persons.
After the battle of Racławice, Kościuszko at once issued further calls to arms, especially urging the enrolment of the peasants. This measure was to be effected, so Kościuszko insisted, with the greatest consideration for the feelings of the peasants, all violence being scrupulously avoided, while the land-owners were requested to care for the families of the breadwinners during their absence at the war. The general levy of the nation was proclaimed. In every town and village at the sound of the alarm bell the inhabitants were to rally to the public meeting-place with scythes, pikes or axes, and place themselves at the disposition of the appointed leaders. Thus did Kościuszko endeavour to realize his favourite project of an army of the people.
Unable for lack of soldiers to follow up his victory, Kościuszko remained in camp, training his soldiers, sending summonses to the various provinces to rise, and seeing to the internal affairs of government. The oaks still stand under which the Polish leader sat in sight of the towers of Cracow, as he cast his plans for the salvation of Poland. The spot is marked by a grave where lie the remains of soldiers who died at Racławice; and on one of the trees a Polish officer cut a cross, still visible in recent years.
Kościuszko's character held in marked measure that most engaging quality of his nation, what we may term the Polish sweetness but it never degenerated into softness. His severity to those who held back when their country required them was inexorable.
"I cannot think of the inactivity of the citizens of Sandomierz without emotions of deep pain," he writes to that province, which showed no great readiness to join the Rising. "So the love of your country has to content itself with enthusiasm without deed, with fruitless desires, with the sufferings of a weakness which cannot take a bold step! Believe me, the first one among you who proclaims the watchword of the deliverance of our country, and courageously gives the example of himself, will experience how easy it is to awaken in men courage and determination when an aim deserving of respect and instigations to virtue only are placed before them. Compatriots! This is not now the time to guard formalities and to approach the work of the national Rising with a lagging step. To arms, Poles, to arms! God has already blessed the Polish weapons, and His powerful Providence has manifested in what manner this country must be freed from the enemy, how to be free and independent depends only on our will. Unite, then, all your efforts to a universal arming. Who is not with us is against us. I have believed that no Pole will be in that case. If that hope deceives me, and there are found men who would basely deny their country, the country will disown them and will give them over to the national vengeance, to their own shame and severe responsibility."[1]
This language ran like a fiery arrow through the province: it rose. On all sides the country rose. Kościuszko's envoy carried to one of the Polish officers in Warsaw the terse message: "You have a heart and virtue. Stand at the head of the work. The country will perish by delay. Begin, and you will not repent it. T. Kościuszko."[2] By the time this letter reached its destination Warsaw had already risen."
[1] K. Bartoszewicz, History of Kościuszko's Insurrection.
[2] T. Korzon, Kościuszko.
For weeks the preparation for the Rising in Warsaw had been stealthily carried forward. Igelstrom had conceived the plan of surrounding the churches by Russian soldiers on Holy Saturday, disarming what was left of the Polish army in the town, and taking over the arsenal. The secret was let out too soon by a drunken Russian officer, and the Polish patriots, headed by the shoemaker Kilinski, gave the signal. Two thousand, three hundred and forty Poles flew to arms against nine thousand Russian soldiers. Then ensued the terrible street fighting, in which Kilinski was seen at every spot where the fire was hottest. Each span of earth, in the graphic phrase of a Polish historian, became a battlefield.[3] Through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday the city was lit up by conflagrations, while its pavements streamed with blood. When the morning of Holy Saturday broke the Russians were out of the capital of Poland, and all the Easter bells in Warsaw were crashing forth peals of joy. Stanislas Augustus, who a few weeks earlier had at Igelstrom's bidding publicly proclaimed Kościuszko to be a rebel and an outlaw, now went over to the winning side. On Easter Sunday the cathedral rang to the strains of the Te Deum, at which the King assisted, and on the same day the citizens of Warsaw signed the Act of the Rising and the oath of allegiance to Kościuszko. The news was brought into Kościuszko's camp in hot haste by an officer from Warsaw. It was in the evening. Drums beat, the camp re-echoed with song, and on the following morning a solemn Mass of thanksgiving was celebrated. No salvos were fired, in order to spare the powder. "Henceforth," joyfully cried Kościuszko in a manifesto to his country, "the gratitude of the nation will join their names"—those of Mokronowski and Zakrzewski, the President of Warsaw, who had been mainly responsible for the city's deliverance—"with the love of country itself. Nation! These are the glorious deeds of thy Rising; but," adds Kościuszko, whose foresight and sober judgment were never carried away by success, "remember this truth that thou hast done nothing so long as there is left anything still to be done."[1]