Pulaski, Kosciuszko and Memorials

     Casimir Pulaski, like his Polish compatriot Tadeusz Kościuszko, not only achieved renown in fighting on the American side in the Revolutionary War, but both also have bridges named for them.  Kościuszko survived the war to carry his fight back to Europe for Poland.  Pulaski died as a result of wounds at Savannah, Georgia.  Kościuszko actually has 2 bridges named for him-a truss bridge spanning Newtown Creek between Queens and Brooklyn, and one across the Mohawk River carrying I-87 connecting Albany and Saratoga counties in New York.  But Pulaski has the pair of cantilever bridges connecting Newark to Jersey City.

     I was in DC on business and leaving the DC government building saw the statue.  I was surprised to see Egg Harbor listed in the base of the statue together with Brandywine and Valley Forge; on the other side of the base are listed Charleston, Germantown and Savannah.  Egg Harbor, which engagement is also known as Chestnut Neck, is marked by obscure memorials to both the engagement and Pulaski.  But the Pulaski Skyway-an elegant feat of engineering-is an iconic part of the New Jersey urban landscape.  Never married, dead in his early 30s, but his name persists in the Meadowlands of New Jersey.

Chestnut Neck, Privateering and Terrorism

I had a prior post on Chestnut Neck, noting the role of foreign officers in the Continental Army.  This post takes a different look at the affair, which was the result of privateering activity by the Americans.  Jack Coggins, in Ships and Seamen of the American Revolution, notes that "[i]n a sense, a privateer was little more than a licensed pirate." Authorized by the Continental Congress, during the Revolution, privateers accounted for 800 commissioned vessels, far outnumbering the 198 commissioned vessels in the United States navy.

Here we see the view from Chestnut Neck across the Mullica River at the Jersey shore.

The Battle of Chestnut Neck makes us consider the rule of law and terrorism in the context of another time.    It has been suggested that the British deemed themselves, as we might put it today, to be fighting state-sponsored terrorism.  In an article on this topic, Professor Jesse Lemisch of John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York has written that "[p]rivateers were denounced by the British in ways that resonate with the denunciation of terrorists that we hear these days." 

The Aliens Among Us--Chestnut Neck

Between October 6 and October 15, 1778, two of the more colorful military leaders of the Revolution clashed in a small town along the Mullica River, not far from contemporary Atlantic City.  Captain Patrick Ferguson (later Major, and killed at King's Mountain) led a force of 400 soldiers consisting of the 5th Regiment British Foot and the Third Battalion New Jersey Volunteers, to cut off the privateering activity in the area.  Washington sent General Casimir Pulaski and his Legion to protect the wharf at Chestnut Neck.  Ferguson found a small number of militia at Chestnut Neck, then  a 12 house town and commercial wharf, and easily defeated them with minimal casualties, on October 6.  On October 4, Pulaski left Trenton on October 8, reached Tuckerton (then called Middle of the Shore).  After a week of watching each other, Ferguson surprised one of Pulaski's outposts on October 15 with 250 men, and in essentially a bayonet attack, destroyed the outpost and left.

Pulaski was one of the various foreigners that were commissioned by Congress to serve in the Continental Army, like his Polish compatriot, Tadeusz Kościuszko.  Kosciuszko served as an engineer; Pulaski had been a cavalry officer.  He would be mortally wounded at the Battle of Savannah a year later.  This monument in the area of where he fought at this obscure battle in New Jersey serves as a reminder that the United States has always depended upon "the aliens among us."