The Eighth Tribe, 1979 (6. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1979-09-01 / 9. szám

Lt. Gen. George M. Seignious, II

oppression. In that mood he appears to have collected in Leipzig a long-standing claim, and proceeded to Bourdeaux. There on January 13, 1776, he phrased—in superb Latin—his famous letter to Benjamin Franklin, then serving in Paris.

“Golden freedom cannot be purchased with yellow gold,” he wrote. Here on the monument are the words with which he closed that letter to Franklin; Fidelissimus ad morten (most faithful unto death). Franklin responded promptly. Kováts was soon in America with the title “Master of Exercises” of General Pulaski’s cavalry. That was a lowly beginning from which Kováts rapidly arose to Colonel Commandant of the Pulaski Legion.

In that role he displayed considerable abilities as a recruiter and trainer of troops and as frontier tactician when he faced Indian enemies. These were all valuable traits in early Legion campaigns and in the sweep the Legion made from Pennsylvania to Charleston in 1779. The arrival of the Legion in Charleston changed the mood of the citizenry from despair to hope. Pulaski paraded the Legion through the streets, and soon dissuaded the City Council from surrendering immediately to the threatening forces of British General Prevost.

Brig. Gen. Wallace E. Anderson President of The Citadel.

Kováts died in a spirited attack on the British; an attack that delayed the fall of Charleston a year; and an attack that imbued new spirit into the populace.

At almost exactly the age I am today, he fell only a few yards from here, mortally vlounded.

All I could learn of Colonel Kováts’ career inspired me to focus on his spirit, his elan. I found as I read about him, that his spirit grew stronger and stronger.

The biography Doctor Udvardy recently gave me says of the small unit Kováts commanded in Charleston: it “displayed a strange contrast in spirit to that of the population of Charleston which was at its lowest possible ebb.”

In an address dedicating Col. Kováts’ monument in 1954, General Clark spoke of the ties that Charleston feels with Colonel Kováts. The General said, “Even deeper ties, however, are those of the spirit. The life of Colonel Kováts exemplifies the qualities which The Citadel strives to develop in our cadets.”

We admire the spirit that you members of the Colonel Commandant Michael de Kováts Society have