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When Travis Bowman moved to North Carolina three years ago, family members told him to visit Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro, where his ancestor Peter Francisco was enshrined.

Francisco was perhaps the most famous soldier during the Revolutionary War. He reportedly killed 11 British troops at Guilford Courthouse, single-handedly carried away a half-ton cannon at the Battle of Camden and escaped from the clutches of nine Tarleton's Raiders.

A few years ago, while perusing the displays at the park's visitors center, though, Bowman wondered why more people today weren't aware of Francisco's exploits.

"Here was a man of whom George Washington said we might have lost the war without," says Bowman, who lives in Cornelius, just outside of Charlotte. "And as a descendant, that just put a fire in me."

The 36-year-old sales and marketing consultant is getting ready to publish a novel based on Francisco's life, "Hercules of the Revolution," through Comfort Publishing in Concord.

Believed to have been born in the Portuguese-controlled Azores Islands in 1760, Francisco was presumed to have been kidnapped by pirates when he 5.

"We don't know for sure, but we think he was being taken to Brazil to be sold into slavery," Bowman says. "And either a hurricane or something knocked them off course, and the pirates just wanted to get rid of him. Maybe they felt they would be cursed if they threw him overboard, or maybe they just felt bad because he was a little boy, and dropped him off in the town of City Point, which is now Hopewell, Va."

There he was found on a dock, speaking a language that was unfamiliar to passers-by and repeating the name Pedro Francisco.

He was bought from an orphanage by Judge Anthony Winston, an uncle of Patrick Henry, and spent the next 10 years working on his plantation.

By 15, Francisco was 6-foot-6 and weighed 260 pounds.

While on a trip to Richmond, Va., he heard Henry deliver his famous line, "Give me liberty or give me death." That motivated him to enlist in the Continental Army, but he had to wait another year before Winston allowed him to do so.

Francisco fought in a number of battles throughout the war, and a postage stamp, released in 1976, shows him carrying an 1,100-pound cannon on his shoulder. He wanted to prevent the British from claiming it after the Continental Army was forced to retreat at Camden in 1780.

"Without him, we would have lost two crucial battles, perhaps the war and with it our freedom," Washington allegedly said. "He was truly a one-man army."

Bowman's book focuses on Francisco's actions during the war and relationship with Susannah Anderson, a woman he met while in the Army.

"You don't know if he marries or not," Bowman says. "So throughout the book they're writing letters and there is the love story."

The author says he started working on the book shortly after visiting Guilford Courthouse a few years ago, where a 30-foot-tall obelisk commemorates Francisco's actions. He read several books that had been written about his ancestor and sifted through the archives of William & Mary.

Bowman took part in the festivities at the annual Observance of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse last year, showing up in the guise of Francisco and wielding a six-foot long broadsword, like the one given to the war hero by Washington.

He will not be at this year's event, which takes place Saturday and Sunday, but is planning to don his tricorn in May for a book expo in New York where the novel will be launched.

Contact Robert C. Lopez at robert.lopez@news-record.com or 691-5091.