Seres István: Karikással a szabadságért. Rózsa Sándor és betyárserege 1848-ban (Békéscsaba, 2012)

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included guns, hatchets, tethers (or lasso), and last but not least, the bullwhip. Among the enemy it is, especially, the last tool made of a wooden handle and several meters of braided strap that caused terror. Therefore, it is not surprising that even oral tradition has preserved mostly this tool until today. An illiterate shepherd, Sándor Rózsa became only a sergeant of the troop. The actual command was first taken by lieutenant named Károly Szerencsey from the Hunyadi Hussar Regiment, then by a captain, Imre Bánhídy, a descendant of an upscale noble family of Kiskunfélegyháza, landowner of Pusztapéter. Among the leaders of the troop, there was an engineer named Károly Hutiray-Lukácsy, a noble man himself, sergeant of the Hunyadi Hussars, and József Tóth, a herdsman from Algyő, the famous Red Tavern’s bartender, as a sergeant.

The troop left for the theater of war of Bánát on the 25th of October where they had a mission to act against Serbians (commonly referred to as ’’rácok” in Hungarian), who had rebelled against the legal Hungarian government. The troop may have spent about five weeks in the some smaller and larger reconnoiters. Their baptism of fire was the battle of Lagerdorf on the 9th of November when Rózsa killed twelve enemy soldiers with his own hands.

The assessment of the troop was rather mixed because, besides their heroic behaviour shown in the struggles, they sometimes did take the time to do their real ’’job”. During the above-mentioned battle, for example, they looted hostile villages, and on the 17th of November, they put to the sword several local inhabitants of the village of Ezeres in Kras- só county. At the end of November, the troop was dissolved and the majority of the crew got back home to their families. Although governors from Szeged and the army officers fighting in Bánát, and not at least Lajos Kossuth, wanted Sándor Rózsa to continue the service at the head of his reorganized troop, he did not accept it. When he paid a visit to Kossuth in Pest, in the company of his captain and sergeant, he definitely laid down the arms. During his visit to Pest, Rózsa was cleared of the accusations against him for the debaucheries of his troops, and, on the 15 th of December, Kossuth, as chairman of the National Defense Committee, confirmed his amnesty given to him earlier and exempted him from further compulsory military service.

In our book, mostly on the basis of archival sources, we are trying to present the history of Rózsás cavalry but we have also sometimes presented and analyzed literary adaptations and folk legends. Naturally, attention is focused on Sándor Rózsa but this work is the history of his troop, therefore, we are trying to share with the readers more information about the members. Unfortunately, we have not found the contemporary name list of Rózsás cavalry, still, we know around thirty of them by name including the officers, so we present the life story of most of them as well.

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