The Most Famous Private Soldier of the American Revolution

 

 Peter Francisco (1760-1831) who was six feet eight inches tall, and weighed some 260 pounds has come down to history with the title the “Virginia Giant.” His deeds during the Revolutionary War became the stuff of myth and legend. Some of the stories may actually contain an element of truth, others if not true “ought to be”, in the words of the heroic storytellers of the Revolution.  The stories of the Giant’s deeds were so popular by the 1820s that the early Revolutionary War historian Alexander Garden wrote that he “scarcely ever met a man in Virginia who had not some miraculous tale to tell of Peter Francisco.”

Pedro (later called Peter) Francisco arrived at the dock in City Point aged five and was unable to speak English. It is believed that he had been kidnapped from his Portuguese parents in the Azores. He was taken in and raised by the family of Judge Anthony Winston.

 In 1776, at the age of sixteen Francisco enlisted in the Virginia Line. He fought in Pennsylvania at the Battle of Germantown and in New Jersey at the Battle of Monmouth. Francisco was part of an attack on the British fort of Stony Point in New York where supposedly, even after receiving a nine-inch wound to the stomach, he continued to fight; killing twelve British grenadiers and capturing the enemy’s flag.

  One of his most well-known feats occurred in South Carolina after the Battle of Camden. Seeing an American cannon mired in mud and about to be abandoned, he freed the 1,100-pound cannon and carried it on his shoulders to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

 He fought at Guilford Court House in North Carolina. A monument at Guilford Court House National Military Park commemorates Francisco’s efforts,” To Peter Francisco a giant in stature, might, and courage who slew in this engagement eleven of the enemy with his own broad sword rendering himself thereby perhaps the most famous Private soldier of the Revolutionary War.”

 The story of “Francisco’s Fight” relates how the legendary giant, although unarmed, overpowered nine enemy dragoons who were trying to rob him of the silver buckles on his shoes. He supposedly killed three dragoons and made off with eight horses.