British soldier and inventor, born in Pitfour, Aberdeenshire, NE Scotland, UK. He served in the army in Germany and Tobago. In 1776 he invented a breech-loading rifle, firing seven shots a minute, and sighted for ranges of 100500 yd. With it he armed a corps of loyalists, who helped to defeat the Americans at the Battle of Brandywine (1777). He was killed at the Battle of King's Mountain, SC.
Patrick Ferguson (1744–1780), was a British Army officer, rifle-designer, and early advocate of light infantry.
Patrick Ferguson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 25 (Old Style)/June 4 (New Style) 1744, the second son and fourth child of advocate James Ferguson of Pitfour (who was raised to the judges' bench as a Senator of the College of Justice, so known as Lord Pitfour after 1764) and his wife Anne Murray, a sister of the literary patron Patrick Murray, 5th Lord Elibank.
Through his parents, he knew a number of major figures in the Scottish Enlightenment, including philosopher and historian David Hume, on whose recommendation he read Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa when he was fifteen, and the dramatist John Home.
He began his military career in his teens, encouraged by his uncle James Murray.
After returning home in 1772, he took part in Light infantry training, coming to the attention of General Howe, and developed the Ferguson rifle, a breech-loading flintlock weapon based on Chaumette's earlier system.
Service in the American Revolution
In 1777, he went to serve in the American Revolutionary War with his experimental rifle corps.
In October 1778, he was sent to lead a raid to suppress privateers who had been seizing British ships and were based around the Little Egg Harbor River in what is known as the Battle of Chestnut Neck. Shortly after this raid, Ferguson was notified that a detachment of Count Kazimierz Pułaski troops was located nearby. Ferguson marched his troops to the site of the infantry outpost, which comprised fifty men a short distance from the main encampment. Pulaski eventually led his mounted troops, (Pulaski's Legion), up, causing Ferguson to retreat to his boats minus a few men that had fallen into the colonists' hands.
In 1780, Clinton appointed Major Ferguson as Inspector of Militia in South Carolina.
His personal correspondence reveals a man of intelligence, humour and charm.
He was survived by his mother, his brothers James and George, and sisters Annie, Elizabeth (Betty) and Jean.
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