Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski

Who was Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski?

Włodzimierz Bonawentura Krzyżanowski was a Polish engineer, politician, and military leader — a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

A Polish noble, he took part in the 1848 uprising against Prussia and left Poland after its suppression. In early 1861 he enlisted in the US Union Army, recruiting a company of Polish immigrants, becoming colonel of the 58th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, listed in the official Army Register as the "Polish Legion" In the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, Krzyżanowski helped repel an evening assault by the famed Louisiana Tigers on the Union defenses atop East Cemetery Hill. He was appointed brigadier general in 1862. After the war, he held several government posts, and might have been the first American administrator of Alaska Territory.