Patrick Ferguson
| Patrick Ferguson | |
|---|---|
Anonymous miniature of Patrick Ferguson in uniform, as Captain of the light company of the 70th Foot, c. 1774–77 (private collection)
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| Born |
4 June 1744 Pitfour, Aberdeenshire, Scotland |
| Died | 7 October 1780 (aged 36) Kings Mountain, Province of South Carolina |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of Great Britain
|
| Service/branch | British Army |
| Years of service | 1759–1780 |
| Rank | Major |
| Unit |
Royal Scots Greys (1759–1768) 70th Regiment of Foot (1768–1772) |
| Commands held |
Ferguson's Rifle Corps (1776–1777) Fraser's Highlanders (1777–1780) |
| Battles/wars |
Seven Years' War American Revolutionary War † |
Major Patrick Ferguson (1744 – 7 October 1780) was a Scottish officer in the British Army, an early advocate of light infantry and the designer of the Ferguson rifle. He is best known for his service in the 1780 military campaign of Charles Cornwallis during the American Revolutionary War in the Carolinas, in which he aggressively recruited Loyalists and harshly treated Patriot sympathisers. Some dispute this characterization of Ferguson as showing pro-Patriot bias, however, and other accounts praise him for his humanity and unwillingness to follow orders he considered barbaric.
Ultimately, his activities led to a Patriot militia uprising against him, and he was killed in the Battle of Kings Mountain, at the border between the colonies of North and South Carolina. Leading a group of Loyalists whom he had recruited, he was the only regular army officer participating on either side of the conflict. The victorious Patriot forces desecrated his body in the aftermath of the battle.
Patrick Ferguson was born at Pitfour in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on 25 May (Old Style)/4 June (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 had numerous first cousins through his mother's family: these included Sir William Pulteney, 5th Baronet, Commodore George Johnstone, and Sir James Murray (later Murray-Pulteney).
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