Friends of Liberty

Starred review from January 14, 2008
Thomas Jefferson's betrayal of a loyal friend, the great Polish patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko, is at the center of this book by Nash (The Unknown American Revolution
) and Hodges (Anna May Wong
). Jefferson had promised to use Kosciuszko's American estate to free some of his slaves. He reneged on that pledge, torn as always between his principles, his benefits from slavery and his debts. Kosciuszko, a skilled engineer who greatly contributed to the American military in the Revolution and was more deeply opposed to slavery than most Americans (it was a free African-American from Massachusetts who proved to the Pole the worth and humanity of black people) could not move his friend to free his slaves. Agrippa Hull—the third man in this fascinating story—was an army orderly who served Kosciuszko and the nation of his birth. Hull seems somewhat peripheral to the main story line, but the authors' telling of his life puts yet another man previously lost to history onto the historical record. All in all, this is a wonderful book, an outstanding example of how a scholarly monograph can be readable, moving and sobering all at once.