Fraternity-Testvériség, 1959 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1959-09-01 / 9. szám

F RATERNITY

OFFICIAL ORGAN OF HUNGARIAN REF. FEDERATION OF AMERICA

Editor-in-Chief: George E. K. Borshy. — Managing Editor:

Joseph Kecskemethy. — Associate Editors: Emery Király and László L. Eszenyi. — Chief Contributor: Alexander Daroczy. Published monthly. — Subscription for non-members in the U. S. A. and Canada $2.00, elsewhere $3.00 a year.

Office of Publication: Expert Printing Co., 4627 Irvine St., Pittsburgh 7, Pa. Editorial Office: Kossuth House, 1801 “P” St., N. W., Washington 6, D. C.

Volume XXXVII SEPTEMBER 1959 Number 9

BELA BACHKAI:

THE STORY OF MICHAEL KOVÁTS, COMMANDER OF WASHINGTON’S CAVALRY

Many nations contributed to the success of the Revolutionary War. Thus, when the United States was born, those with different backgrounds, too, could consider themselves members of a united nation.

One of the most colorful soldiers of the Revolution was a Hungarian in his early fifties, who volunteered his services to Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest of early American statesmen, then George Washington’s special envoy to France.

Hungarian Hussars were for centuries the foremost horsemen in all Europe. Without their dashing sorties defending the Carpathian Range against innumerable onslaughts from the East, Western civilization would have fallen asunder a long time ago.

Thus many a Western monarch, including that fabulous soldier, Frederick the Great, had his light cavalry drilled by Hungarian officers. One of these was Michael Kováts, whose ancestry places him at the village of Fabric, in the geographic center of the Magyar Lowlands.

Having received his commission from General George Washington at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, during the almost disastrous winter campaign of 1777, Col. Kováts immediately started out in earnest to put the fledgling American cavalry in trim fighting shape.

Aided by funds of the youthful Polish General Casimir Pulaski, the re-equipped cavalry took part in the Indian campaigns in New York and distinguished itself in a dozen important battles. Contemporary records praise Col. Kováts for having his men well disciplined and led them even to church services whenever possible.

The Single Sisters of Bethlehem, Pa., also known as Moravian nuns, embroidered a silk regimental banner for the Legion, presenting this to Pulaski and Kováts. A mural in the Hotel Bethlehem depicts the scene and the flag itself, under which both Kováts and a year later Pulaski fell in battle, is now the prize possession of the Maryland Historical Museum in