The rigors of the winter and the hardships to which the Revolutionary soldiers were accustomed overwhelmed the delicate constitution of the brilliant young de la Radière. Unhappily, he contracted a severe cold that culminated in consumption from which he died the following mid-summer. Another European, attracted by the justice of the Revolutionary cause, succeeded de la Radière. Thaddeus Kosciusko, a Pole of education and culture, joined Parsons’s officers, with whom he became a great favorite, not only on account of his engineering ability but by reason of his charming manners, soft and conciliating, and by the elevation of his mind. One officer wrote that he took much pleasure in accompanying Kosciusko with his theodolite measuring the heights of the surrounding mountains. Today Kosciusko’s name is more familiar to West Pointers than de la Radière’s, for an enchanting little garden, a tiny retreat hanging on to the cliff near the river, bears his name, and a monument, in the northeast corner of the Plain near Port Clinton that he helped build, commemorates his devotion to the Revolutionary cause. Kosciusko’s presence and energy put new life into the work of construction. Shortly afterwards, when orders came from Washington to expedite the completion of all of the forts, Parsons and Kosciusko, under the direction of Colonel Rufus Putnam, immediately commenced excavations for Fort Putnam.[2] The men now daily trudged up the small hill back of the Plain and began making clearings for the fort’s foundation. It was hard laborious work, extremely fatiguing, and, to add to the men’s discomfiture, they were greatly annoyed by large rattlesnakes with which the hill top seemed to swarm. While the land defenses were being so well prepared, steps were taken to prevent enemy ships from passing up the Hudson. The topography of West Point and the adjacent country lent itself most admirably to the plan of obstructing the river. The Hudson, as it comes down from Newburgh a straight course of nine miles, strikes West Point, where it is deflected eastward for a quarter of a mile, flowing between Constitution Island and the steep cliffs of the Point before again turning south. Any British sailing vessel coming up the river from New York would, upon rounding Gee’s Point, lose a great deal of its speed on account of the swift current, and if stopped by some obstruction could be held under the fire of the batteries on both shores. General Putnam, therefore, through his Quartermaster-General, contracted with the Sterling Iron Works of Noble, Townsend and Co., for an iron chain 500 feet long, each link about two feet long, to be made of the best Sterling iron 2¼ inches square, with a swivel to every hundred feet and a clevis to every thousand feet, for which the government was to pay $440 for every ton weight of chain and anchors.[3] [Illustration: Artillery Target Practice _Photo White Studio_]