The True Identity of Peter Stuart Ney
The fact that Ney was executed by firing squad in Paris is beyond doubt. However, his execution aroused sympathy from both allies and former enemies, and movements to restore his honor soon emerged in France. Ney was said to possess a charisma second only to Napoleon’s as a battlefield commander, though he did not necessarily have the exceptional talent to be called a great strategist. Nevertheless, through his tragic fate, his name became one of the enduring symbols of the Napoleonic era. His death was deeply mourned, and after his official rehabilitation, a statue was erected during the Second Empire.
The first written record of the legend that Ney escaped execution and fled to America appeared in the Carolina Watchman on March 18, 1856. The article was signed “Philos,” who, according to researchers, was E. F. Rockwell — a former student of a man calling himself Peter Stuart Ney.
Between the 1860s and 1870s, the legend spread throughout the local region. By the 1880s, newspapers in New York and Chicago also carried reports of it, though their tone was dismissive, rejecting the story as untrue.
In 1895, James A. Weston published “Historic Doubts as to the Execution of Marshal Ney”. Weston believed the legend, and his book helped elevate what had been a popular rumor into a subject of serious discussion.
Subsequently, works such as Dr. J. Edward Smoot’s “Marshal Ney Before and After Execution” and Legette Blythe’s “Marshal Ney: A Dual Life” were published. Both books, written in America, include numerous testimonies from Peter Ney’s former students, and both conclude decisively that Peter Ney was indeed Marshal Ney. In the United States, many people came to believe this legend, though Ney’s surviving relatives and descendants categorically denied it — some reportedly with great indignation.
In recent years, a scientific project was undertaken to determine Peter Ney’s true identity. The project team exhumed Peter Ney’s supposed burial site but found no remains.
At Davidson College, a flute belonging to Peter Ney had been preserved. DNA extracted from the flute revealed a genetic pattern typical of populations from colonial North America and northwestern Europe. In contrast, Marshal Ney’s origins are known to have been in Switzerland or Germany. Thus, the findings indicate that Peter Ney was not Marshal Ney.
