PETER FRANCISCO
It is somewhat surprising that
Hollywood has never made a movie based on the life of Peter Francisco. His
story would seem to have all the ingredients for box-office success–mystery,
romance, and swashbuckling action. Perhaps the problem is in casting the role;
it would require a swarthy, Mediterranean actor who is also the size of a house
and has a light tenor singing voice.
If such a film were made, one
can imagine the opening scene: in the foreground a wooden pier juts out into a
misty harbor, where the stillness is broken only by the cries of a few gulls.
Gradually, the sound of splashing oars becomes audible. A longboat emerges from
the fog; then, as the scene brightens, the silhouette of the merchantman from
which it came appears in the distance. The boat pulls alongside the dock;
sailors' rough voices mutter unintelligibly as the form of a small person is
lifted from the bobbing craft and set on the pier.
A shout is heard and the boat
quickly departs. The bewildered castaway turns toward the camera. He is a young
boy, no more than four or five years old, dressed in a once-fine suit that now
is dirty and worn. On his shoes expensive silver buckles spell out the initials
'P.F.
At daybreak the pier begins to come
to life. Waterfront residents gather curiously around the waif, asking
questions. Unable to speak their language, he simply repeats the words Pedro
Francisco. Eventually a woman comes along, takes the child by the hand, and
leads him away, saying I'll take him to the poorhouse. They'll know what to do
with him.
This scenario, though a bit
romanticized, is roughly what happened at City Point (now a part of Hopewell),
Virginia, on June 23, 1765. The boy later grew up–and up–to become the
most remarkable fighting man of the Revolutionary War, a giant of a soldier of
whom General George Washington is reputed to have said: Without him we would
have lost two crucial battles, perhaps the War, and with it our freedom. He was
truly a One-Man Army.
Soon after young Pedro Francisco was
taken to the Prince George County poorhouse, his plight came to the attention
of Anthony Winston, a local judge and uncle to Virginia firebrand Patrick
Henry. Winston took the lad in and taught him to speak English.
Once the boy could communicate with
his new guardian, he recounted what he remembered of his past, but it wasn't
much. He had lived in a mansion near the ocean, he said. His mother spoke what
he thought was French; his father spoke another language–what, he couldn't say.
One day, when Pedro and his younger sister were playing in the garden, rough
men seized them. The girl fought and got away, but Pedro was bound,
blindfolded, gagged, and carried to a ship. After what seemed an endless
voyage, he was put ashore at the City Point dock.
Winston never learned anything more
about the boy's past, but later investigators have been more successful in
piecing together what appears to be a likely, if partial, solution to the Peter
Francisco mystery. In 1971, Virginia researcher John E. Manahan, reporting on
studies he had carried out while teaching overseas, argued convincingly that
Francisco's original home had been at Porto Judeu, on Terceira Island in the
Portuguese-held Azores, and that he was the same Pedro Francisco born there on
July 9, 1760.
Why Francisco was abducted remains a
mystery. Manahan theorized that the child had been kidnapped by sailors who
intended to sell him in the New World as an indentured servant, but the
researcher offered no explanation of why they abandoned their captive instead.
An Azorean legend has it that the Francisco family, fearful of political
enemies, engineered Pedro's abduction as a means of protecting him from some
grisly form of reprisal planned against his parents. While this may be true,
evidence is lacking. But that Peter Francisco was a Portuguese (which he
himself suspected) seems almost certain, and Portuguese-Americans have eagerly
accepted him as an illustrious forebear.
Whether or not the sailors in fact
intended to sell the boy into indentured servitude, that more or less became
his fate. Rather than provide Peter with formal schooling, Judge Winston put
him to work doing chores around his plantation, a 3,600-acre estate in
Buckingham County, Virginia, known as Hunting Tower.
In adulthood Peter was destined to
attain the then-prodigious height of six-feet-six-inches–nearly a foot taller
than the average man at the time–and weigh at least 260 pounds. Already of
surpassing stature by his early teens, the youth was instructed in the brawny
trade of blacksmithing–an obvious calling for a person of his size and amazing
strength. It was the latter rather than his height that got him noticed.
In March 1775, when he was not yet
fifteen, Francisco went along with Judge Winston to Richmond for a meeting of
the Virginia Convention. Tempers flared as delegates hotly debated the colony's
relationship with Great Britain.Young Peter contributed to the excitement when
he broke up one tavern dispute by lifting the combatants into the air and
banging them together until they ceased their argument.
It was during this convention that
the lad stood outside St. John's Church and heard through the window the
renowned speech by Patrick Henry that ended: I know not what course others may
take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! Peter, as the story
goes, was ready right there to take up arms against the British oppressors, but
Judge Winston prevailed upon him to wait: though large enough to go to war, he
was not quite old enough. In 1776 Winston relented, and at the age of sixteen Peter
enlisted with the 10th Virginia regiment as a private.
Although Francisco was not at Bunker
Hill or Saratoga, in many other respects his military career closely followed
the course of the War of Independence. After a stay of several months in New
Jersey following his enlistment, Francisco received his first taste of action
in September 1777 at Brandywine Creek in neighboring Pennsylvania, where
General Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, attempted
to halt the advance toward Philadelphia of some 12,500 British troops under the
command of General William Howe.
Outflanked by Howe, the Americans
suffered a defeat in the ensuing battle, and Washington's army was forced into
a disorderly retreat. The regiment of which Francisco was a member held the
line at a narrow defile called Sandy Hollow Gap for a crucial forty-five
minutes, allowing the rest of the force to withdraw and preventing an all-out
rout. The young soldier suffered a gunshot wound to his leg during this
hard-fought rear-guard action.
While convalescing in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, Peter encountered the Marquis de Lafayette, who as a
twenty-year-old major general in Washington's Army also had been wounded in the
fray. Their vast differences in rank notwithstanding, the two young men
recuperated together and reportedly became friends.
By October, Francisco was well again
and rejoined his regiment in time for the Battle of Germantown, five miles
north of Philadelphia. Although the British eventually forced the Americans to
retreat, this fight nevertheless restored the Continentals' morale, for they
had almost held the day and thus now knew that the British were vulnerable.
Francisco was with the troops at
Fort Mifflin on Port Island in the Delaware River from late October to mid-November.
This post was abandoned under ferocious British shelling, forcing the defenders
into the wintry hell of Valley Forge, where Francisco was hospitalized for two
of those agonizing months.
For the next three years, Francisco
followed his commanders through a succession of engagements. In several
instances he performed exploits of such an extraordinary and courageous nature
that by war's end he became generally recognized as the most famous private
soldier of the Revolutionary War.
Francisco fought at Monmouth (near
present-day Freehold, New Jersey) on June 28, 1778, where a musket ball tore
into his right thigh, leaving a wound that nagged him for the rest of his life.
On July 15-16, 1779 the young
Goliath took part in the daring surprise attack led by General Mad Anthony
Wayne on Stony Point, the British Army's stronghold on the Hudson River, north
of New York City. The American assault columns were spearheaded by two
twenty-man commando units known as forlorn hopes; Francisco was in the northern
one, commanded by a Lieutenant Gibbon. Gibbon's unit sustained so many
casualties that only he, Francisco, and one other man reached their objective,
but the advance party was right behind them, and the Americans captured the
fort.
During the attack Francisco suffered
his third wound of the war, a nine-inch gash in the stomach, but that didn't
stop him from killing three enemy grenadiers and capturing the enemy's flag.
After recuperating in Fishkill, New York, the wounded warrior bided his time
with the troops in various locations until December 1779, when his three-year
tour of duty expired and he returned to Virginia.
Francisco's journey southward
coincided with a turn in the same direction by the war itself. In early 1778
the British decided to move their heaviest offensive activities into the South,
partly because they expected to receive the backing of the many Loyalists they
believed resided in the region. When Peter learned of the enemy's intentions,
he joined the Virginia militia.
British strategy called for the
capture of Savannah and the securing of Georgia, to be followed by a move north
into South Carolina. Congress selected General Horatio Gates, the unpleasant
intriguer whose victory at Saratoga in 1777 had puffed up his reputation, as
the man to check the Redcoats' advance in the South. The ensuing operations,
known as the Camden Campaign, were an American fiasco, and Francisco was there
to experience the unfortunate episode.
The first major clash in the South
between the Continentals and the British Army came at the Battle of Camden on
August 16, 1780. The outcome, an utter rout, was labeled by nineteenth-century
historian John Fiske as the most disastrous defeat ever inflicted on an
American army, but nonetheless here Francisco achieved one of his most shining
moments. Overtaken and surrounded by the enemy during the panicked American
retreat, the lad speared a British cavalryman with a bayonet, hoisted him from
his horse, and then, climbing onto the steed himself, escaped through the enemy
line by pretending to be a Tory sympathizer. Catching up with his fleeing
comrades, he gave the mount to his colonel, thereby saving the exhausted
officer's life.
Next, seeing that one of two
American cannon was being left behind, Peter–as the story has it–crouched beneath
the 1,100-pound gun, lifted it from its carriage and onto his shoulder, and
carried it off the field to prevent its falling into enemy hands. Some
historians have questioned whether such a feat is possible, but during the
American bicentennial celebrations of 1975-76 the U.S. Postal Service saw no
reason to doubt it and issued a commemorative stamp showing the hulking Peter
Francisco performing this stupendous deed. No wonder that, by the time of this
battle, Peter had acquired the reputation as the strongest man in America.
Francisco again returned to Virginia
after the Camden debacle, but not for long. When he learned that Captain Thomas
Watkins was raising a cavalry troop, he got himself a horse and returned to
action. Watkins's unit was assigned to the command of Colonel William
Washington and was soon involved in the crucial confrontation at Guilford
Courthouse, North Carolina, on March 15, 1781.
The Continentals were now under the
command of Nathanael Greene, who, unlike Gates, proved worthy of the confidence
placed in him. Greene's actions in the South were instrumental in bringing the
war to a victorious conclusion. Technically, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse
was a British victory, for Greene's soldiers retreated after a hard-fought
contest; but it was a Pyrrhic one–the losses suffered by the British, now under
the command of Lord Cornwallis, were so grave that his army was effectively
wrecked. Later Cornwallis wrote that the Americans fought like demons in what
was one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
At Guilford Courthouse Francisco
once again gave a most astonishing performance. As Benson Lossing reported in
his 1850 Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, Francisco, a brave
Virginian, cut down eleven men in succession with his broadsword. One of the
guards pinned Francisco's leg to his horse with a bayonet. Forbearing to
strike, he assisted the assailant to draw his bayonet forth, when, with
terrible force, he brought down his broadsword and cleft the poor fellow's head
to his shoulders!1
Despite his latest wound, Francisco
did not leave the battle, and in one final assault against the British he
killed two more of the enemy before receiving a bayonet thrust in his right
thigh the whole length of the bayonet, entering above the knee and coming out
at the socket of his hip. As his comrades retreated, the fallen cavalryman was
left for dead on the field. A Quaker named Robinson is said to have taken
Francisco to his home and cared for him until he rallied.
After this fray, Francisco again limped
home to Virginia. Having suffered five wounds for his country's cause, Peter
could easily have been excused from further service at this late date in the
war, but his military career was not quite over. He volunteered as a scout to
monitor the Virginia operations of Banastre Tarleton and his horsemen. While
out on a mission, Peter stopped off at the inn of one Ben Ward. Nine of
Tarleton's troopers surrounded the tavern and announced Peter's arrest. One of
the soldiers further demanded that Francisco surrender his silver shoe buckles;
in a scene worthy of a Hollywood script-writer, Francisco told him, in effect,
to take them yourself. As the cavalryman bent to do just that, Peter snatched
his captor's saber and struck him a blow on the head. The wounded trooper fired
a pistol, grazing Peter in the side for his sixth wound of the war; Francisco
at the same moment cut the soldier's hand nearly off. Another cavalryman aimed
a musket at the American, but when it misfired Peter wrenched it from the
soldier's grasp, knocked him from the saddle, and escaped on his horse.
With this feat of derring-do,
Francisco's career of terrorizing British troops ended. He was granted,
however, the supreme satisfaction of being present when Cornwallis surrendered
at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.
Peter then returned to Richmond in
the company of Lafayette. There is an unverifiable story that as the two were
strolling in front of St. John's Church, a young lady who was leaving the
building tripped and was caught by the strapping young veteran. And that was
how Francisco first encountered Susannah Anderson, the woman he would marry.
Before giving any thought to
marriage, however, Peter sought the education he had earlier been denied. The
story of his determination to rise above his humble status is as inspiring as
the tales of his battlefield achievements. He went to school, sat his hulking
form down next to the children, and within three years was reading the
classics.
At the same time that Peter was
pursuing learning, he worked as a blacksmith. During this time a diarist named
Samuel Shepard observed him at work and recorded that he never before saw
muscles as great and developed in so young a man, or boy, he is still a boy . .
. his great hands, long broad the fingers square, the thumbs heavy and larger
in the nail than the usual great toe. His feet are as exceptional for length
and thickness as is his whole body. His shoulders like some old statue, like a
figure of Michelangelo's imagination like his Moses but not like David. His jaw
is long, heavy, the nose powerful, the slant [of his] forehead partly concealed
by uncombed black hair of a shaggy aspect. His voice was light, surprising me
as if a bull should bellow in a whimper. Other contemporary accounts emphasize
Francisco's gentle nature and note that his prominent traits of character for
temperance, good temper, and charity were no less striking.
With his marriage to Susannah in
December 1784, Peter became a member of the landed gentry, a part he played
well. He displayed a taste for bright-colored waistcoats, high hats, and silk
stockings. He acquired a reputation for his hunting and fishing outings and his
house parties, at which he would display his fine voice, described by one
visitor as having a power, depth, and sweetness of tone, with wonderful
potency. His pathetic earnestness is irresistible.
Peter and Susannah had a son and a
daughter before she died in 1790. Catherine Brooke became Peter's second wife
in 1794, and two years after her death in 1821 (they had three sons and one
daughter) he married Mary Grymes West, the widow of Major West, a Virginia
planter.
Many of the stories told about Peter
Francisco in this period of his life are awestruck recountings of his strength.
He seems to have acquired a Paul Bunyan-like status, and it is impossible to
tell which of the tales about him are true. It may well be that they all are.
He may really have amused guests by holding two 160-pound men at arm's length
above his head, and actually have rescued a cow and her calf from a bog by
picking one up under each arm and simultaneously carrying them out of the mud.
Not surprisingly, Francisco folklore
includes stories of arrogant tough guys foolish enough to test his strength.
One husky chap reportedly traveled all the way from Kentucky for this purpose.
Finally goaded into action, the gentle giant threw the challenger over a
four-foot fence onto the public road. The badly shaken visitor said that he
would leave satisfied if Peter could dispose of his horse in the same fashion;
whereupon Francisco handily lifted the steed over the rails. The embarrassed
Kentuckian headed for home, enjoined by his good-natured host to call again
when you are passing.
As Francisco grew older and rich in
renown, honors and rewards came his way. In 1819, Congress granted him a
monthly pension. Five years later, when the Marquis de Lafayette made a
triumphal return to the United States, the celebrated visitor made a point of
visiting his old hospital mate. And, in 1825 Francisco was named
sergeant-at-arms of the Virginia legislature.
Peter Francisco passed away,
apparently from appendicitis, on January 16, 1831. The House of Delegates
adjourned and paid him the honor of a public funeral at which the Right
Reverend R. C. Moore took note of Peter's degree of bodily strength superior to
that of any man of modern times . . . exerted in defense of the country which
gave him [a home].
The passage of this American
Hercules from mysterious waif to war hero to country squire, and from the
Azores to the Virginia countryside, is surely one the most intriguing and
unusual stories to be found in the early annals of the United States.
Hollywood, take note.
This article originally appeared in
the October 1998 issue of American History magazine. For more great
articles be sure to pick up your copy of American History.
