Polish units under Apolinary Kurowski numbering around 2,500 troops attacked the town in an attempt to gain control of the so-called border triangle - an area at the crossroads of the Austrian, Prussian and Russian partitions which would have allowed the insurgents access to supplies and troops from outside the Congress Poland where the uprising proper was taking place.

Either the Russian commander guessed the intent, or the strategic plan of the Poles was somehow betrayed.

These included a successful charge by the Zouaves of Death, a unit organized by Francois Rochebrune and led by Wojciech Komorowski in this battle, on Russian positions in the local cemetery.

As a measure of repression, the town was set on fire and local residents were forbidden to put it out.

[citation needed] As a result of the engagement, Kurowski's unit ceased to exist.