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.

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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.

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