Well time's up and as I'll be packing tomorrow and such before I head out this will be my last post here for the next few weeks or more.
Answer:
Michel Ney, Marshal of France
Ney was thought to have been executed for treason on December 7,1815. He was reportedly shot by his own men at his own command to fire. Was he really executed? It appears now that he wasn't. The official account says that the body indeed fell forward, there to lie for 15 minutes as was custom before being covered and taken to the Hospital for Foundlings. There were a few spectators, among them Sir William Fraser, who later related that the soldiers fired; the body was immediately taken away in a carriage – the whole transaction not occupying three minutes. "It was," in Fraser's words, "all over before the nurses and children – the only other spectators – could realize what had happened." No surgeon examined the body; nor was any coup de grâce given, a custom in 19th Century France. It was Fraser's judgement that Wellington, now occupying Paris, had saved his antagonist from death. Significantly, both belonged to the Masonic Order, and that may have been a deciding factor.
So what is the evidence that one Peter Stewart Ney who died on November 15, 1846 in Rowan County, N.C. was Marshal Ney? In January 1816 (note: about a month after the "execution") a man who gave his name as Peter Stewart Ney landed at Charleston, S.C. In 1819 at Georgetown, S.C., a group of French refugees reported seeing Peter Ney and recognizing him as Marshal Ney, whom they had seen numerous times in France. Ney immediately left Georgetown, and for the next 10 years he taught school on several North Carolina towns, finishing his career in that state's Lincoln and Rowan counties.
It may be no small coincidence that he chose for his name in America, "Peter Stewart Ney." The first name, "Peter," was the name of Marshal Ney's French father, and the middle name "Stewart" was the surname of his Scottish mother.
Several of Ney's pupils related that he had confided once or twice who he really was. Also one German immigrant by the name of John Snyder identified Ney in 1840. Snyder had served with the Marshal in the Napoleonic Wars.
Last, when Peter Stewart Ney died his body was examined and found to have numerous battle scars including wounds from sabers and bullets. His last words as he lay on his sickbed are said to have been "Before Almighty God, I am Michel Ney, Marshal of France." He was buried in the cemetary at Third Creek Church in North Carolina. His tombstone reads as follows: "In memory of Peter Stewart Ney, a native of France and Soldier of the French Revolution under Napoleon Bonaparte, who departed this life November 15th, 1846, aged 77 years."