idst. A large number of these Tories were
Scotch, chiefly from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch
blood predominated among the racial streams in the Back Country from
Georgia to Pennsylvania. Now, to insure a triumphant march northward for
Cornwallis and his royal troops, these sons of Scotland must be gathered
together, the loyal encouraged and those of rebellious tendencies
converted, and they must be drilled and turned to account. This task, if
it were to be accomplished successfully, must be entrusted to an officer
with positive qualifications, one who would command respect, whose
personal address would attract men and disarm opposition, and especially
one who could go as a Scot among his own clan. Cornwallis found his man
in Major. Patrick Ferguson.

Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and
thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a Highlander--about
five feet eight--lean and dark, with straight black hair. He had a
serious unhandsome countenance which, at casual glance, might not
arrest attention; but when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of
the intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his eyes and the
convincing sincerity of his manner. He was admired and respected by his
brother officers and by the commanders under whom he had served, and he
was loved by his men.

He had seen his first service in the Seven Years' War, having joined
the British army in Flanders at the age of fifteen; and he had early
distinguished himself for courage and coolness. In 1768, as a captain of
infantry, he quelled an insurrection of the natives on the island of
St. Vincent in the West Indies. Later, at Woolwich, he took up the
scientific study of his profession of arms. He not only became a crack
shot, but he invented a new type of rifle which he could load at the
breach without ramrod and so quickly as to fire seven times in a minute.
Generals and statesmen attended his exhibitions of shooting; and even
the King rode over at the head of his guards to watch Ferguson rapidly
loading and firing.

In America under Cornwallis, Ferguson had the reputation of being the
best shot in the army; and it was soon said that, in his quickness at
loading and firing, he excelled the most expert American frontiersman.
Eyewitnesses have left their testimony that, seeing a bird alight on a
bough or rail, he would drop his bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it
in the air, catch and aim it as