The Eighth Tribe, 1976 (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1976-12-01 / 12. szám

December, 1976

THE EIGHTH TRIBE

Page 9

Book Review:

By S. B. Vardy, Ph.D.

Duquesne University

MICHAEL KOVÁTS: A Hungarian Colonel in the American Revolution

In this bicentennial year when we have celebrated the two-hundreth anniversary of the birth of the United States, most of the ethnic groups that make up this nation have made an extra effort to show their respective contributions to American history and civilization. The Hungarians were no exceptions, and there are some results.

Some of the results of this widespread effort to catalogue the contributions of various nationalities to American history are major scholarly works, that encompass large segments of these contributions. Others are more modest works, that constitute only small building blocks in the history of ethnic American culture. There are many more in the latter category. The primary reason for this is that conditions for the writing of definitive summaries of the history and cultural achievements of most American ethnic groups are simply not there yet. The lack of organized source collections, and the almost similar lack of specialized monographs on acceptable scholarly level make the writing of such major summaries impossible. As a matter of fact, before such definitive major histories of various aspects of the Hungarian-American past can be undertaken, scholars and interested but learned laymen will have to do two things: They will have to participate in the already belated effort to collect the archival and published sources of the Hungarian-American past into several organized archives and libraries; and they — especially the former — will have to undertake the writing of numerous specialized monographs on aspects of Hungarian-American life and culture. These monographs then will serve as the foundation stones and building blocks for such future definitive summaries of Hungarian contributions to the make-up of American history and civilization. Without such reliable foundation stones and building blocks, the history and past cultural achievements of the Hungarians in America, and their contributions to the United States will never be written in an acceptable manner, and on the required scholarly level.

In some of our past writings in The Eighth Tribe, we have already pointed out the existence of a number of such building blocks that were written for the occasion of the American Bicentennial and published by the Bethlen Press. These include Leslie Könnyű’s Acacias: Hungarians in the Mississippi Valley, and Joseph Széplaki’s two volumes on Kossuth in America (Louis Kossuth: The Nation’s Guest and The Champion of Liberty). All of these works point in the right direction, and undoubtedly, all of them will serve as building blocks for a future great summary of the Hungarian-American past. And this also-holds true for the volume under review: László Eszenyi’s bilingual volume, FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH (Ligonier, Pa.: The Bethlen Press, Inc., 1976. Hung, text pp. 5-72; English text pp. 5-75; plates pp. I-XVI). This work is another step in the right direction. It too will serve as a building block in the reconstruction of the Hungarian-American past.

Eszenyi’s work is basically a biographical summary of the life and achievements of Colonel Michael Kováts (1724- 1779) who, along with Count Casimir Pulaski of Poland, was the founder of the American Cavalry in the Revolutionary War. Having been born in Karcag, Hungary, into a family of respectably county nobility of modest means, and having served for decades in several Austrian and Prussian Hussar regiments, Kováts was already fifty-three years old when he offered his services to the cause of American independence. He did this in a letter dated January 13, 1777, and addressed to Benjamin Franklin, then the American ambassador to France. His services having been accepted, Kováts joined the newly appointed Brigadier General Pulaski in the formation of the first American cavalry units, which he trained according to well-established methods customary in the Hungarian, Austrian and Prussian hussar regiments.

In the course of the years 1778 and 1779, the “Pulaski Legion” — commanded mostly by Kováts — took part in several military actions, including the Battle of Charleston in May of 1779. It was at this battle, on the 11th of May, that Kováts died while leading a cavalry charge against the British. His ability as a military leader and strategist was best summed up in the words of his opponent, the British Major Skelly, who characterized Kovát’s regiment as “the best cavalry the rebels ever had.”

Although others have written about Kováts before, Eszenyi’s Faithful Unto Death is thus far the most comprehensive summary of his life and of his contributions to the cause of American liberty. Eszenyi’s work is particularly strong in describing the military aspects of Kováts’s career— a fact that rhymes well with the author’s own background.

The author does list his published sources at the end of the work. But his lack of documentation (footnoting) and the absence of reference to archival material seems to indicate that he did not go beyond these published sources. In all probability, his intention was simply to write a popular summary for the general public. If that was his aim, he did very well indeed. He produced a well-written and interesting summary of the life of one of the earliest Hungarian-Americans who fought and died for the “Land of Liberty.”

While one cannot expect a work of this type, written for the general reader, to contain detailed documentation, the author could perhaps have cited a few additional published studies on Kováts and on his age. In addition to several other works by the pioneering Hungarian-American historian Jenő (Eugene) Piványi (e.g. Magyarok az Amerikai Forradalomban!Hungarians in the American Revolution, New York, 1925; Hungarian-American Historical Connections, Budapest, 1927; Hungary and the Americas, Budapest, 1944; etc.), these published studies may also have included Elemér Bakó’s recent essay (“Most Faithful Unto Death,” The American Bicentennial, July-August, 1974, pp. 6-7, 39- 42), as well as Eszenyi’s own earlier Magyar language study on this question (“Fabriczi Kováts Mihály ezredes élete és hősi halála”/The Life and Heroic Death of Mihály Kováts de Fabriczi/,A XIV. Magyar Találkozó Krónikája, Cleveland: Árpád Könyvkiadó, 1974, pp. 132-146.)

All in all, László Eszenyi’s Faithful Unto Death is a very useful and readable work. And because the book contains the full-length version of his study in both English and Hungarian, it is readily accessible to everyone. In fact,