American Revolutionary War At the age of 16, Francisco joined the
10th Virginia Regiment in 1776 and soon gained notoriety for his size and strength. He fought with distinction at numerous engagements, including the
Battle of Brandywine in September. He fought a few skirmishes under Colonel
Daniel Morgan, before transferring to the regiment of Colonel John Mayo of Powhatan. In October, Francisco rejoined his regiment and fought in the
Battle of Germantown and the
Siege of Fort Mifflin on Port Island in the
Delaware River. Francisco was hospitalized at
Valley Forge for two weeks following these engagements. On June 28, 1778, he fought at the
Battle of Monmouth, where an enemy musket ball tore through his right thigh. He never fully recovered from this wound, but fought at the
Battle of Cowpens and other battles. Francisco was part of General
Anthony Wayne's
attack on the British fort of Stony Point on the
Hudson River. Upon attacking the fort, Francisco suffered a nine-inch gash in his stomach, but continued to fight; he was second to enter the fort. Francisco's entry into the fort is mentioned in Wayne's report on the battle to General Washington, dated July 17, 1779, and in a letter written by Captain William Evans to accompany Francisco's letter to the Virginia General Assembly in November 1820 for pay. As a result of being the second man to enter the fort, he received 200 dollars. In a letter Francisco wrote to the
Virginia General Assembly on November 11, 1820, he said that at Camden, he had killed a grenadier who had tried to shoot Colonel Mayo. He also claimed he escaped on horseback after bayoneting a
British Legion cavalryman, shouting cries to make the British think he was a
Loyalist; the horse was later given to Mayo. Hearing that Colonel
William Washington was headed on a march through the Carolinas, Francisco joined him, participating in the
Battle of Guilford Courthouse in
North Carolina. He reportedly killed eleven enemy soldiers during the battle, including one who wounded him severely in the thigh with a
bayonet. In his own words, Francisco was "seen to kill two men, besides making many other panes [
sic] which were doubtless fatal to others." However, scholars have argued that the weight of the cannon barrel depicted in old sources ranging from is an exaggeration, and the actual weight would have been around . During 2019
Strongest Man in History TV show, the participants speculated the weight would have been a maximum .
Francisco's Fight , an alleged skirmish illustrated in this 1814 engraving by
David Edwin after
James Barralet Francisco was sent home to
Buckingham, Virginia to recuperate. He volunteered to spy on the British Legion, who were operating in the area. On this journey, he performed his best-known action:
Francisco's Fight. He claimed to have defeated a detachment of the Legion and captured several of their horses. Legend has it that he killed or mortally wounded three of an eleven-man patrol. According to Henry Howe, the alleged encounter happened when one night, nine of the Legion's cavalrymen surrounded Francisco outside of a tavern and ordered him to be arrested. They told him to give over his silver shoe buckles. Francisco told them take the buckles themselves. When one of them began to seize his shoe buckles, Francisco took a soldier's saber and struck him on the head. The wounded soldier fired his pistol, grazing Francisco's side; Francisco nearly cut off the soldier's hand. Another soldier aimed a musket at Francisco, but it misfired. Francisco grabbed it from the soldier's hands, knocked him off his mount, and escaped with the horse. However, in his 1820 letter to the Virginia legislature, Francisco reported having killed one and wounded eight enemy soldiers along with capturing eight of their horses. In 1781, Francisco was ordered by his commanding officer to join the Franco-American army participating in the
siege of Yorktown; he arrived too late to participate in the fighting but witnessed the surrender of the besieged British army under the command of
Lord Cornwallis.
Later years Following the end of the American Revolutionary War, Francisco pursued his basic education. He went to school with young children, who were fascinated by his stories of the war. Legends of Francisco's strength abounded during his lifetime. In his later years, Francisco was poor and had petitioned Congress and the Virginia legislature for a pension. He spent the last three years of his life working as the
Sergeant-at-Arms to the
Virginia State Senate. ==Personal life==