Battle of Zhovti Vody - Before The Battle

Before The Battle

Around April 21–22, 1648, word of an uprising had spread through the Commonwealth. Either because they underestimated the size of the uprising, or because they wanted to act quickly to prevent it from spreading, the Commonwealth's Grand Crown Hetman Mikołaj Potocki and Field Crown Hetman Marcin Kalinowski sent 3,000 soldiers under the command of Potocki's son, Stefan, deep into Cossack territory, without waiting to gather additional forces from Prince Jeremi Wiśniowiecki. Stefan's force consisted of 2 companies of dragoons, 1 unit of infantry (foreign mercenaries), and 11 companies of cavalry (about 1150 soldiers, of which 1 company was composed of the elite Winged Hussars); the rest of his force was composed of registered Cossacks. While this group travelled by land, an additional detachment was sent down the Dnieper river in boats to join Stefan Potocki's forces in due course. These troops, under the command of Polkovnyk (colonel) Mykhailo Krychevsky, were composed almost entirely of registered Cossacks (they also included a small number of German dragoon mercenaries) and numbered at around 4,000.

A unit of 5,000 soldiers remained with Hetman Mikołaj Potocki while he attempted to gather local reinforcements from the various private armies of the local magnates, as well as from the pospolite ruszenie of the militant szlachta (Polish nobility).

Stefan's force arrived first at the rendezvous point. It is likely that Krychevsky, en route, contacted Bohdan Khmelnytsky, his old friend (whom he helped to escape into Zaporizhian Sich a year earlier) and the leader of the uprising.