Pedro Francisco was born to a noble family in the Portuguese Azores in 1760. Five years later, he appeared on a Virginia dock, the victim of kidnapping. Adopted by a relative of Patrick Henry, Pedro became Peter, grew to a massive six-and-a-half feet, and took up blacksmithing. When the Revolution erupted, Francisco joined the Continental Army's Virginia Line and fought near Philadelphia at Brandywine and Germantown before spending the bleak winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. Francisco participated in many more attacks and exploits; at Camden, South Carolina, in 1780, legend has him carrying a half-ton cannon on his shoulder (a moment depicted on a 1975 U.S. postage stamp). a battlefield monument honors him as "perhaps the most famous Private soldier of the Revolutionary War." In a riveting narrative that separates fact and fiction, John T. Palmer tells the true story of the adventures of this larger-than-life soldier, a giant of the Revolution.
