Bieganski, Edward
(ca. 1816 -- Jan. 27, 1886)
Polish exile

Exactly when Edward Bieganski set foot in the United States is still not whisked out of the passenger lists of the ships that plied the Atlantic in the 1830s. At the time, he probably boarded a small sailing vessel at Trieste, on the Adriatic coast, where sea captains were not too familiar with Polish names, and his name was garbled like many others. On April 13, 1837, when he was recruited in New York for the Second U. S. Dragoons, a comparatively new regiment to augment the mounted riflemen in the Second Seminole War in Florida, Captain William W. Tompkins spelled his name Buganskie. Throughout his years in this country it was spelled in many ways.

In Poland, where he came from, Bieganski, which numbered 2188 women and 2020 men of the same name in 2002, was spelled with an accent over the n almost always. He was the first Bieganski to wear the uniform of an American soldier and was stationed at Fort Micanopy, in what is now Martin County, Florida, in 1838, when Brigadier General -- later President of the United States -- Zachary Taylor, ordered Captain Henry W. Fowler to find three good riders in Company H to carry the mail between the post office near Tampa and various garrisons. On a hot August day, while on his way with mail, Private Bieganski stopped after riding about a 100 miles to water his horse. Indians used the surrounding hammocks to ambush anyone who passed by. Bieganski was fired upon by them. His horse went wild. He fell to the ground. Quickly he calmed the horse and continued to the post office near Tampa. Then, when he went to the doctor at Fort Brooke, also in the same area, he got a medical discharge on account of a hernia. Whether he was in New York or New Orleans, he received a pension of $5.33 1/3 per month semi-annually on the fourth day of March and September. In 1839, because of his disability, he made his way to Poland, only he didn't get there. He sailed from New Orleans and lost his valuable papers during a heavy gale. Without them, he was stopped in England, and had to return to the United States.

The crippled five-foot, eleven-inch tall Pole, with hazel eyes and brown hair, went back to New Orleans, where there were between 40 and 50 of his countrymen. In 1842, ten of them joined the U. S. Army, three went to Texas, and others were scattered throughout the city. These included Kajetan Kowalewski (a medical doctor who came from Ireland in 1840); Juliusz Swoboda, corresponding secretary of the Society of Polish Political Emigres in New Orleans); Henryk Trzetrzewinski, Ignacy Krzeckowski, Gracjan Oborski, Jakub Erlich, Jozef Giedroyc; Jan Leszczynski (who later changed his name to Lessen); Kazimierz Spirydowicz, Marian Targonski; Alfons Pisarzewski (inspector of customs); Aleksander Szuszkiewicz, Michal Waszkowski; Kazimierz Bielawski (who began in 1853 to survey public lands in California); and Rudolph Piotrowski (who joined the California gold rush in 1849).

For years Bieganski worked as a night watchman until the Louisiana legislature passed a law in January, 1862, to conscript "all free white males capable of bearing arms" and add them to a Confederate militia. Pretty soon Bieganski was arrested at home, where obviously he lived alone, and taken in handcuffs to a Confederate garrison. As soon he had a chance he escaped. He remained in hiding until General Benjamin Butler and his Union troops occupied the city on May 1, 1862.

The adroit general from Massachusetts, still in need of more troops, used fugitive slaves to repair levees and widen drainage ditches and filled other vacancies with Irish, German and other immigrants. It is not clear whether the uncompromising Bieganski was a night watchman, the clerk of a station house, the warden of the parish prison, or promoted from one position to the other over the yeara.

After the war, politics rose to the top. For Bieganski, who depended a great deal on the mayors for employment, the great number of mayors was devastating. There were 31 mayors of New Orleans between 1850 and 1886. For example, in 1866, when Hugo Kennedy, an Irish druggist, was mayor of New Orleans, he promoted Bieganski to police lieutenant. The next mayor, John T. Monroe, a Democrat, discharged Bieganski. In his final years, between Democratic mayors and collectors of customs, Bieganski was a night inspector of goods on incoming ships.

From: Edward Pinkowski -- [email protected] (2010)