The Father* of the US Cavalry
During all this kerfuffle over immigration, it might be interesting to note that, in the course of our country’s history, 8 people – 6 men* and 2 women – have been granted honorary US citizenship, although most of them were dead when they got it.
The two who were granted it in life were Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and his wife Hannah Callowell Penn, who administered the Province after Penn got sick and continued after he died, were awarded the honor posthumously, as was Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat in Hungary who issued thousands of passports to Jews and sheltered them in buildings designated as Swedish territory during the Holocaust.
The three other foreign nationals rendered great service to the nascent United States in our War of Independence. The Marquis de Lafayette we’ve all heard of. Bernardo de Gálvez was a Spanish colonial governor of Louisiana who provided critical supply-lines to the Americans, then generaled some impressive victories over the Brits along the Gulf Coast, winning Florida back (temporarily) for the Spanish Crown. Galvez, LA is named for him, as is Galveston.
The third Revolutionary War hero to be given honorary US citizenship is General Kasimierz Pulaski. Pulaski became a special hero to Chicago schoolchildren: every year, for his birthday, they would get the first Monday in March off as, outside of Poland, Chicago has the largest population of Poles on the planet.
Pole Flag
Pulaski is considered the Father* of the US Cavalry. During the Battle of Brandywine, before even receiving an official rank, he took some men, reconnoitered the British advance, and determined that the fleeing Americans were about to be cut off. Washington told him to rally such troops as he could and to use his discretion to secure the retreat. Pulaski decided to charge! His audacious act saved the Army, George Washington’s life, and the United States. He was made a Brigadier General, and in time turned the US riders from a disjointed scout force into a cavalry worthy of the name.
Thanks, Kazzie!
Pulaski was later wounded in battle during the Siege of Savannah and taken aboard the first warship ever named the USS Wasp. He died within 48 hours, but accounts conflicted as to the disposal of the body. The captain of the Wasp said he had been taken ashore in Georgia and died there. Others said he died aboard and was buried at sea. Still others averred that he died aboard and was buried in Charleston.
A set of bones buried in Savannah and said to be Pulaski’s were exhumed in 1996. Although certain wounds apparently matched those garnered over a career of hard fighting, the results of that study were inconclusive, and the body was re-interred with military honors in 2005. Subsequent mitochondrial DNA analysis funded by the Smithsonian revealed just this year that these remains are indeed those of Pulaski.
*However…
…many characteristics of the skeleton we now know to be Pulaski’s – a short, slim, confirmed bachelor and teetotaler – are female in appearance. Pulaski’s baptism was conducted in private due to something referred to in the records as a “debility.” There are some indications that this debility may have been Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, which can lead to many male-seeming characteristics in a female child.
Tonight the Smithsonian Channel will present a show about Pulaski, leaning towards the conclusion that he was intersex. I’ll be watching!
During all this kerfuffle over the role of men, women and trans people serving in the military, it might be interesting to note that, in the beginning of our country’s history, Kazimierz Pulaski may have actually been the Mother of the US Cavalry.
Thanks, Kasi?
Motherf…ing Teresa!!! Was given honorary ANYTHING is disgusting! She is a shining example of catlicks everywhere!
1Yeah, no matter what: The founder of our Cavalry, and a badass soldier…
2My (now) solidly Rethug conservative Catholic Polish neighbors in Panna Maria and Cestohowa, TX are going to be freaked out over this. IIRC there is even a Pulaski holiday celebrated.
Panna Maria was the first Polish immigrant settlement in the US, long before the Polish influx to the big cities, migrating to South Texas from Upper Silesia around 1854. It has changed little, and many of their descendants still live around this area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panna_Maria,_Texas
3He was a shining example of a person who believed wholeheartedly in the beautiful message of hope which he and others rejoiced to see emerge in that Ancien Regime world.
I continue to believe in that message, and will defend it until the day I die…
4That’s got to PO Southerners where men are men and women are inferior. I expect a rash of name changes to “Trump” in the near future.
5L.Long – what the bleep is your problem? You sound like the kid who beat up my late husband when he is a boy because he was a “catlick”. You didn’t get anywhere near the topic of the article.
6Sam @5 – that’s a lot of name-changing!
Pulaski, Georgia
Pulaski, Illinois
Mount Pulaski, Illinois
Pulaski, Indiana
Pulaski, Iowa
Lake Pulaski, a lake in Minnesota
Pulaski, Mississippi
Pulaski, Missouri
Pulaski, New York
Pulaski, Ohio
Pulaski, Tennessee
Pulaski, Virginia
Pulaski, Wisconsin (village)
Pulaski, Iowa County, Wisconsin, (town)
Pulaski County, Arkansas
Pulaski County, Georgia
Pulaski County, Illinois
Pulaski County, Indiana
Pulaski County, Kentucky
Pulaski County, Missouri
Pulaski County, Virginia
American infrastructure and landmarks
Pulaski Technical College, a college in Arkansas
U.S. Route 40 in Delaware or Pulaski Highway
Fort Pulaski, on Cockspur Island, Georgia
Pulaski Road (Chicago), Illinois
Casimir Pulaski Memorial Highway, the portion of Interstate 65 in Lake County, Indiana
U.S. Route 40 in Maryland or Pulaski Highway
General Pulaski Skyway, New Jersey
Pulaski Bridge, New York City
County Route 11 (Suffolk County, New York) or Pulaski Road
Pulaski Barracks, a U.S. Army military installation in Kaiserslautern, Germany
Four “El” stations in Chicago.
Plus who knows how many local street names.
Ships (none currently in service)
USS Pulaski (decom 1863)
7SS Pulaski, a passenger ship (blew up and sunk, 1838)
USS Casimir Pulaski, a ballistic missile sub (decom 1994)
USS Pulaski County, USMC tank landing ship (decom 1967)
Since Gen. Pulaski apparently identified as male–note the mustache–I’m willing to keep calling him “he,” no matter what the actual genetics reveal. All the Poles in Chicago, and elsewhere, may continue to celebrate “his” contributions–or hers. Thank you, General, for saving the country.
8So maybe Pulaski was intersex. Still a brave and intelligent soldier who fought and died for a country not of his/her birth. (Sorry, I’m not up on intersex pronouns.) Still deserving of respect.
There are numerous intersex conditions, regardless of what the “men are men and women are women” ignoramuses insist on. Some are anatomically obvious, some not, as when the genes are XY (male) but the fetus didn’t respond to that and developed as an apparently “normal” female. I’ve even heard of (you men might want to stop reading here) a case where the two sides of the penis didn’t entirely come together during fetal development and an operation to close it up was badly botched, leading to a decision to lop the whole apparatus and raise the baby as a girl, which didn’t work out well.
9thatotherjean@8: I agree with you 100%! He lived his life in his own fashion, and I didn’t play any gender reveal pronoun games in the column explicitly to honor that. The essential point is that gender and sexuality are both non-binary, and wherever someone falls along those continua, it doesn’t determine their bravery, martial prowess, or ability to serve their country.
I am so very excited, however, when history gets turned on its ear by dint of hard work, scholarship, and science!
10If there were a way to upvote your comment, Primo, I’d do it. Ain’t science grand?
11@Sam in Minn. just a wee corrction. Among those people the correct reading is men are men and sheep are nervous .
12When I was in graduate school, I did an extensive study of human skeletal sexual dimorphism and learned that there is an area of overlap between things like pelvic characteristics, size of articular surfaces, and cranial characteristics. When you have only one thing to examine, your conclusion can be very clear but when you have the entire skeleton to examine, some uncertainty is likely to creep in. And as we are learning in recent years, how a person identifies is equally (or more) important than what “equipment” is present. So my bottom line says that if Pulaski identified as a male then there is no call to put an asterisk on the word Father.
13I attended Pulaski Elementary School in Savannah, GA about 60 years ago. I believe we were told that he was a Revolutionary War hero. Thanks for the additional knowledge.
14So pleased to see this here. It was a topic of conversation at a family gathering last week. One of the contributors Major Douglas Shores, is a family member. He is a Marine and wrote his dissertation on Pulaski while studying at the University of Gdansk in Poland in Polish which is apparently a tough language to master. His wife who is a native of GA gave him the idea of studying Pulaski in GA history. You will see Doug in the documentary. We actually call him Dr. Major Shores.
15Primo … so good to see you back at the Salon and many thanks for a very interesting read! 🙂
16I was a lousy student in school. Not to mention that it was a pretty long lifetime ago, but I do remember a lot of the stuff we were taught and I don’t seem to recall much if anything about this Pulaski thing.
17Other than the pickaxe-like tool called the pulaski, which my dad taught me about.
Jus’sayn’.
Hey! Maggie! It was the 1st paragraph!!!!
18OK I was wrong it is the 2nd one!
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