A body double was placed in the casket, many maintained, while Ney was actually spirited out of France by agents loyal to Bonaparte. Supposedly, no customary final head-shot was delivered after the musket volley, further fuelling the conspiracy theorists. But following his death, stories spread like wildfire about a plot hatched by those allied to the exiled emperor to save Ney.Īccording to the rumours, the firing squad actually shot blanks and the marshal (aware of the scheme) fooled onlookers by bursting blood packs concealed in his shirt. 7, 1815 or was the execution faked, as some have suggested? Official history reports that Ney was buried in Paris at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Marshal Ney.īut was this hero of Napoleonic France really shot by a firing squad on Dec. Captured after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the marshal was eventually tried by the new French regime for treason, found guilty and condemned to death. In fact, Ney is remembered as the last Frenchman to leave Russian soil. Although eventually earning the title of duke, Ney won the undying respect of even the lowliest foot soldiers when he personally shouldered a musket and fought in the rear guard during the disastrous winter retreat from Moscow in 1812. Nicknamed Ginger for his flowing red hair, he was famous for riding to Napoleon’s rescue at the 1807 Battle of Eylau and for taking on the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War. The son of a barrel maker who rose from the ranks as a trooper in the French hussars to eventually lead Napoleon’s Grande Armée, Ney was a bona fide war hero - wounded in battle, captured, released, decorated and later promoted to general. The life story of France’s Marshal Ney reads like something out of a Bernard Cornwell novel. Was the deceased Peter Stuart Ney more than just a mild-mannered head master who had taught in and around Rowan County, North Carolina for more than 20 years? Was he also Michel Ney, “bravest of the brave,” field marshal to Napoleon, the Duke of Elchingen and veteran of countless battles? “I AM NEY OF FRANCE!” Those were reportedly the last words of an obscure 77-year-old North Carolina schoolmaster whose death in 1846 touched off a mystery that has consumed historians for more than a century and a half. After Waterloo, did this beloved war hero vanish only to become a North Carolina high school teacher? (Image source: WikiCommons) “Was this hero of Napoleonic France really shot by a firing squad on Dec. In 1812, the French marshal picked up a musket and joined the line to fight off advancing Russians.