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 CHAPTER VII

THE RISING OF KOŚCIUSZKO

II

have reached the month of May, 1794. Kościuszko and the Russian army under Denisov were now at close grips, Denisov repeatedly attacking, Kościuszko beating him off. Communications with Warsaw and all the country were impeded. Provisions were almost impossible to procure. Kościuszko's men went half starved. Burning villages, set on fire by Denisov's soldiers, a countryside laid waste, were the sight the Poles beheld each day, while the homeless peasants crowded into Kościuszko's camp to tell him their piteous stories. Then Denisov retreated so swiftly towards the Prussian frontier that Kościuszko, either through the enemy's rapidity, or because he was detained by the civil affairs of the government with which his hands were just then full, and by the no less arduous task of organizing the war in the provinces, was not able to overtake him. At this moment the Rising promised well. The Polish regiments, escaping from Russian garrisons, augmented the number of the army that, against unheard-of difficulties—short of money, short of all military requisites—Kościuszko Rh