Patrick Ferguson 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 . Early life . 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 ) . In 1770 Ferguson purchased the Castara estate in Tobago . After Ferguson ' s death the estate was inherited by his younger brother George who had managed the estate since the early 1770s and developed it into a successful enterprise . Exports of rum , sugar and molasses were made back to the UK from it . Seven Years ' War . Ferguson began his military career in his teens , encouraged by his maternal uncle James Murray . He served briefly in the Holy Roman Empire with the Scots Greys during the Seven Years ' War , until a leg ailment - probably tuberculosis in the knee - forced him to return home . After recovering , now in peace - time , he served with his regiment on garrison duty . In 1768 , he purchased a command of a company in 70th Regiment of Foot , under the Colonelcy of his cousin Alexander Johnstone , and served with them in the West Indies until his lame leg again began to trouble him . After returning home in 1772 , he took part in light infantry training , coming to the attention of General Howe . During this time , he developed the Ferguson rifle , a breech - loading flintlock weapon based on Chaumette ' s earlier system . American War of Independence . In 1777 , Ferguson went to the colonies to serve in the American War of Independence with his experimental rifle corps . However , after initial success , he was shot through the right elbow joint at the Battle of Brandywine on 11 September 1777 in Pennsylvania . Shortly before , he had had the chance to shoot a prominent American officer , accompanied by another in distinctive hussar dress , but decided not to do so , as the man had his back to him ( Ferguson ) and was unaware of his presence . A surgeon told Ferguson in the hospital that some American casualties had said that General Washington had been in the area at the time . Ferguson wrote that , even if the officer were the general , he did not regret his decision . The officer ' s identity remains uncertain ; historians suggest that the aide in hussar dress might indicate the senior officer was Count Casimir Pulaski . For some months after being wounded , Ferguson was at risk for amputation of his arm . During this time , he received news of his father ' s death . Ferguson eventually recovered , although his right arm was permanently crippled . He resumed his career in May 1778 , under the command of Sir Henry Clinton . In October 1778 , Ferguson was assigned to lead a raid in southern New Jersey to suppress privateer s who had been seizing British ships . They were based around the Little Egg Harbor River , which empties into the Great Bay . Ferguson attacked their base in what is known as the Battle of Chestnut Neck . About a week later , Ferguson was notified by a Hessian defector , Lieutenant Carl Wilhelm Juliat , who had returned to the British side after a furious argument with the American Lieutenant Colonel Carl Von Bose , that a detachment of Count Pułaski ' s troops , under Von Bose ' s command , was located nearby . Ferguson marched his troops to the site of Bose ' s infantry outpost , which comprised fifty men and was a short distance from Pulaski ' s main encampment . At first light on October 15 , 1778 , Ferguson ordered his men to use bayonets to attack the sleeping men of the American force . Pulaski reported that Ferguson ' s Tories killed , wounded or took prisoner about 30 of his men in what the Americans called the Little Egg Harbor massacre . Ferguson ' s own account ( under the pen - name " Egg - Shell " ) expresses his dismay at Pułaski ' s lack of preparations and failure to post look - outs . He said in his official report that little quarter could be given , and his men took only five prisoners . Ferguson reported that he did not destroy the three houses which sheltered the Americans because they were the dwellings of inoffensive Quakers , who were innocent civilians . Pułaski eventually led his mounted troops ( Pułaski ' s Legion ) forward , causing Ferguson to retreat to his boats , minus a few men who had been captured . Ferguson reported his losses as two killed , three wounded , and one missing . Ferguson was commissioned on October 25 , 1779 as a Major in the 71st Foot . In 1780 , the British Army sent General Lord Cornwallis to invade South Carolina and North Carolina . His mission was to defeat all American forces in the Carolinas and keep the two colonies within the British Empire . A key part of Cornwallis ' s plan was to recruit soldiers from local Loyalists . To achieve this goal , General Clinton appointed Major Ferguson as Inspector of Militia in South Carolina . Ferguson ' s mission was to recruit Loyalist militia in the Carolinas and Georgia and to intimidate any colonists who favoured American independence . After winning several victories over American forces , Cornwallis occupied Charlotte , North Carolina in the summer of 1780 . He divided his army and gave command of one section to Ferguson . Ferguson ' s wing consisted of Loyalists he had recruited to fight for the British cause . When Ferguson publicly threatened to invade the mountains beyond the legal limit on westward settlement unless the colonists there abandoned the cause of American independence , the over - mountaineers organised a militia to fight him and his Loyalists at King ' s Pinnacle , an isolated ridge on the border between the Carolinas . On 7 October 1780 , the two armies met in the famous Battle of Kings Mountain . The battle went badly for the Loyalists , and during the fighting , Ferguson was shot from his horse . With his foot still in the stirrup , he was dragged to the rebel side . According to Rebel accounts , when a Patriot approached the major for his surrender , Ferguson drew his pistol and shot him as a last act of defiance . Other soldiers retaliated , and Ferguson ' s body was found with eight musket holes in it . Patriot accounts said their militia stripped his body of clothing and urinated on him before burial . They buried him in an oxhide near the site of his fall . One of Ferguson ' s mistresses , ' Virginia Sal ' , was also killed in the battle and was buried with the officer . In the 1920s , the U . S . government erected a marker at Ferguson ' s gravesite , which today is a part of the Kings Mountain National Military Park , administered by the National Park Service . Ferguson ' s personal correspondence reveals a man of intelligence , humour and charm . He also wrote several articles , satirical in tone , for publication in Rivington ' s " Royal Gazette " , under the pseudonyms " Egg - Shell " , " Memento Mori " and " John Bull " . He was survived by his mother , his brothers James and George , and sisters Annie , Elizabeth ( Betty ) ( Mrs Scrymgeour - Wedderburn of Birkhill ) , and Jean . Cultural references . In the novel " Horse - Shoe Robinson " ( 1835 ) by John Pendleton Kennedy , a historical romance set against the background of the Southern campaigns in the American War of Independence , fictional characters interact with Ferguson as he is en route to the climactic scene in which he is killed in the Battle of Kings Mountain . In Louis L ' Amour ' s book " The Ferguson Rifle " ( 1973 ) , Ferguson stops by a poor family home on his way to the Battle of King ' s Mountain and kindly gives his personal copy of the Ferguson rifle to a boy who later carries it West . Ferguson is shown to be a gentleman who displays all the appropriate social graces to a lady ( the boy ' s ill mother ) and compassion to a family in need by giving up his personal firearm , asking only that the boy " keep it always , and never use it against the king . " ( p7 ) In Steve Ressel ' s novel " State Of One " ( 2010 ) , Ferguson is the main antagonist featured against James Pariah , a soldier formerly under Ferguson ' s command during the Battle of the Brandywine in 1777 . Ferguson had been resurrected as a golem by the Leeds Witch with hopes of raising a golem army of similar soldiers , all armed with Ferguson rifle s , to destroy the ratification of the US Constitution in September 1787 . James Pariah cleaves to his old Ferguson rifle , sometimes referring to it as his wife , having modified it with special actions such as a spring - loaded knife in the stock .