Patrick Ferguson

Who was Patrick Ferguson?

Major Patrick Ferguson 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.