Legends of the Broadsword:
The One Man Army
It’s hard to associate images of chivalry and swordsmanship with the strip malls and coffee franchises of modern America, but the truth is that there’s a lot more swordsmanship in American history than most people realize. Specifically, there’s a lot more of the broadsword in American history than most people realize.
A versatile weapon that can be used effectively in either single combat or on the battlefield, capable of lethal thrusts and cuts that can literally pass through a limb and out the other side again with ease, the broadsword has seen combat service in many an American conflict. George Washington is said to have been skilled in its use. Abraham Lincoln very nearly fought a duel with one. And America, not exactly a powerhouse in international fencing competition, won all three medals in singlestick (the training weapon for the broadsword) at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. Of course, there were hardly any international competitors at the St. Louis Olympics in the first place, so perhaps this doesn’t really count. But I think a case could be made that the broadsword is the type of sword most closely associated with the United States, and that if we had a national sword the broadsword would be it.
Other nations have produced outstanding swordsmen with their national weapons. When you think of the Japanese katana, the "sword saint" Miyamoto Musashi comes to mind. Italian foil has Aldo Nadi. The American broadsword has Peter Francisco, a hero of the Revolutionary War, who has been described as a modern Hercules- and with good reason.
Francisco appeared quite mysteriously in Virginia in 1765, a young boy wandering around the docks of City Point, speaking a language that might have been Portugese. He later claimed to have been kidnapped from "a beautiful place with palm trees," possibly the Azores Islands, and to have been abandoned in City Point by his kidnappers. This may have been a case of a failed ransom plot, but whatever the situation was, Francisco never saw his family again.
He was raised in the house of Judge Anthony Winston, an uncle of the revolutionary agitator Patrick Henry. Francisco grew into a giant of a man at six feet six inches tall and 260 pounds, an apprentice blacksmith and a supporter of American independence. He was there when Patrick Henry gave his famous ‘liberty or death’ speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, and he joined the revolutionary militia in 1777. After being wounded at the battle of Brandywine, he recuperated with the Marquis de Lafayette, who became a close friend.
There are many legends about Francisco’s incredible strength, including the time he single-handedly pulled a cannon out of the mud to save it for the retreating American army, and the time he supposedly threw two men (and their horses) over a fence to remove them from his property. It was this sort of legend that earned him the nickname "The Virginia Hercules," but his exploits with his broadsword are better documented.
Francisco was part of a "forlorn hope," a special unit of twenty men handpicked to assault a British position at Stony Point in 1779. Seventeen of his comrades were killed in action and Francisco received a nine-inch-long slash from a bayonet, but he killed three redcoats and captured the British position.
At the battle of Camden in 1780, Francisco performed amazing feats with both broadsword and bayonet, rescuing Colonel William Mayo. Every time he became separated from the American forces, he would capture a British horse and impersonate a British cavalry soldier until he could get away. He was heard to remark afterwards that his broadsword was a mere toothpick, so Lafayette asked General Washington to have a special broadsword made for the massive Francisco- a weapon measuring five or six feet long, as long as a two-handed sword of centuries earlier. At the battle of Guilford Court House in 1781, Francisco used this unique weapon to kill eleven redcoats in a single charge, breaking the British advance almost single-handedly. One of the redcoats managed to pin his leg to his horse with a bayonet, and Francisco obligingly helped him to pull it out before cutting the man’s head straight through to his shoulders. A second bayonet wound rendered him unconscious, but he survived the battle and was offered a commission by the Continental Army- which the surprisingly humble Francisco refused on the grounds that an uneducated man should not be made an officer.
At Ben Ward's Tavern in Virginia, Francisco was surprised by a party of eight foraging dragoons who wanted to rob him. Although outnumbered and held at saber-point, Francisco managed to take the officer’s saber away and mortally wound him with it, chasing the entire party from the tavern and capturing their horses.
In reading of this man’s incredible exploits, one is reminded of great legendary heroes like Cuchullain and Achilles. The spirit of such men seems to have lived again in 18th century Virginia, in the person of a giant yet humble blacksmith with a five-foot broadsword in his hands. In the words of George Washington himself: "Without him, we would have lost two crucial battles, perhaps the war, and with it our freedom. He was truly a one-man army."