The Assassination of George Washington - Forgotten History - YouTube

In the brutal fog of war, it's often a single innovation or a single decision that tilts the balance. Throughout history, evolving weapons and tactics have reshaped not just battles but entire empires. The invention of black powder in 13th century China shattered centuries of traditional warfare and ignited a revolution in combat that would echo across the world. When gunpowder reached Europe in the 14th century, it marked the beginning of the end for the armored knight. Fortresses crumbled under cannon fire. Warships became floating batteries of destruction. Battles were no longer decided by strength or steel alone, but by firepower and those bold enough to wield it in new ways. Among those visionaries was Patrick Ferguson. He was a soldier, a marksman, and an inventor who stood at the crossroads of innovation and destiny. Armed with a rifle of his own design and a clear shot at George Washington, Ferguson made a choice that may have preserved the revolution and forever changed the course of world history. Who was Patrick Ferguson? What was his invention? How did he almost change history? What is his legacy? Hello, I'm Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army and Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History. Patrick Ferguson was born at Pitford in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on May 25, 1744, according to the old Julian calendar which corresponds to June 4th on the modern calendar. He was the fourth child and second son of James Ferguson of Pitford, a prominent judge who was later elevated to the peerage as Lord Pitford after becoming a senator of the College of Justice. Ferguson's mother, Anne Murray, was a sister of the literary patron Patrick Murray, 5th Lord Ellibank. His parents moved in high social circles and the young Patrick grew up in the atmosphere of such people as philosopher and historian David Hume and the dramatist John Holm. He had numerous influential first cousins through his mother's family such as Sir William Pulteney, 5th Baronet, Commodore George Johnstone, and Sir James Murray Pulteney. His maternal uncle, James Murray, suggested he choose a military career. He attended a private military academy in London and joined the army at about age 15, serving briefly with the Royal North British Dragoons, better known as the Scots Greys, during the Seven Years' War with the rank of coronet, the lowest commissioned grade, on July 12, 1759. In 1761, Ferguson served in the German states during the Seven Years' War until he was nearly crippled by an ailment. He spent six months recovering in a hospital in Osnabrück before returning home. After a year of recovering and with the war over, he again served with his regiment on garrison duty in 1763. In September 1768, he was able to purchase a captain's commission and command a company in the 70th Regiment of Foot, serving under his cousin, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Johnstone, while serving in the West Indies, until his lame leg became a problem once again. While stationed in Tobago in 1770, Ferguson purchased the Castaro slave plantation, which produced sugar cane. However, the tropical climate aggravated his old leg injury and, by 1771, his condition had worsened. He returned to Britain the following year. During this time, Ferguson began thinking about how to modernize the army. Ferguson became known for tactical precision, sharp thinking, and a passion for rethinking military technology, and, in 1776, Ferguson made history. The action was adapted from the earlier 1720 Isaac de la Chaumette's design. Ferguson redesigned it in 1770 and added the thread screw module and received the English patent number 1139 in December of 1776. This was to be known as the Ferguson Rifle. Ferguson's design used a screw-plug breech system that allowed it to be loaded from the rear. The breech of the weapon was closed by 11 starting threads on a tapered screw, and the trigger guard served as the crank to rotate it. One complete turn dropped the screw low enough to drop a round ball into the exposed breech, followed by a slight overcharge of powder, which was then sheared to the proper charge by the screw as it closed the breech, creating a tight seal. Even more remarkable, Ferguson's rifle could be loaded while lying down in the prone position and even in the rain, something impossible with standard muskets of the time. His innovative design allowed a skilled shooter to fire six to ten rounds per minute, compared to just two or three with a traditional musket and expert hands. Standard smoothbore muskets, depending upon caliber, powder charge, and barrel length, had an effective range of only about 100 to 160 yards. Ferguson's rifle offered far greater accuracy at longer distances. For example, the Brown-Bess musket fired a ball at 1,000 feet per second, and to hit a six-foot man anywhere from his head to his feet was less than 150 yards. This assumes the musket is fired on level ground in a standing position five feet above ground. Patrick Ferguson conducted a series of tests in which he fired six shots per minute at a target 200 yards away accurately from a stationary position, and four shots per minute while advancing at a marching pace. He then wet the inside of the barrel, waited another minute, and then fired the weapon again to prove its reliability, regardless of weather conditions, which often cripple traditional muzzle loaders. Ferguson's rifled barrel was accurate, fast, and adaptable, and it was years ahead of its time. With certain modifications, the rifle's effective range could reach up to 500 yards depending upon weather and humidity. The British War Office took notice. Ferguson personally demonstrated the weapon for King George III, even hitting targets while blindfolded. About 100 of these rifles were manufactured by four British gun firms, with Doerr's Egg being the most notable, and issued to Ferguson's experimental unit, with expert marksmen recruited from several different light infantry units in General Howe's army. In 1777, during the Philadelphia campaign, Ferguson took part in the Battle of Brandywine, which was the first time his rifles were used in combat. While positioned in the woods, he encountered two senior officers on horseback, one of whom had his back turned. Ferguson had them in his sights and could have fired. He later learned that one of the men was General George Washington, accompanied by an aide in a hussar uniform, but Ferguson, believing it dishonorable to shoot a man in the back, chose not to take the shot. History might have taken a very different course if he had. During Brandywine, Ferguson was soon thereafter shot through the right elbow joint, shattering his arm on September 11, 1777. The surgeon in attendance told Ferguson in the hospital that some American casualties had said that General George Washington had been in that area at that time, and that the aide in hussar uniform was in fact Count Casimir Pulaski. Ferguson later wrote that, even if the officer were the general, he did not regret his decision. For some months after being wounded, Ferguson was at risk of having his arm amputated. During this time, he received news of his father's death as But Ferguson eventually recovered, although his right arm was permanently crippled. After recuperating, Ferguson excelled in military intelligence and led raiding parties before joining the British Southern Campaign. Ferguson resumed his military duties in May of 1778 under the command of Sir Henry Clinton. In October 1778, he was assigned to lead a raid in southern New Jersey to suppress privateers who had been seizing British ships. They were located at Little Egg Harbor River, and Ferguson attacked their base in what is known as the Battle of Chestnut Neck. A week later, Ferguson was informed by Hessian defector Lieutenant Carl William Uliot, after a furious argument with the American Lieutenant Colonel Carl Von Bosa, that a detachment of Count Pulaski's troops under Von Bosa's command was located nearby. Ferguson marched his troops to the site of Bosa's infantry outpost, which numbered 50 men and was only a short distance from Pulaski's camp. At dawn on October 15, 1778, Ferguson ordered a bayonet charge against the sleeping men of the American force. Pulaski lost about 30 of his men in the Little Egg Harbor Massacre, as it came to be known. Ferguson's own account written under the pen name Egg Shell highlighted Pulaski's lack of preparations and failure to post lookouts. In his official report, he wrote that little quarter could be given, and his men took only five prisoners. He did not destroy the three houses used by the Americans because they belonged to Quakers, whom he considered innocent civilians. Pulaski eventually led his mounted troops, called Pulaski's Legion, in a charge 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. In fact, Ferguson's personal correspondence reveals a man of intelligence, humor, and charm. During this time, 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. Ferguson was promoted to major in the 71st Foot on October 25th, 1779, and sent south, where General Clinton appointed Ferguson as Inspector of Militia in South Carolina. On May 22nd, 1780, General Lord Cornwallis was sent to invade North and South Carolina to keep those two colonies within the British Empire. Ferguson's mission was to march to the Tryon County area of North Carolina and recruit men from the Tory population and protect Cornwallis' left flank as he marched to Charlotte, North Carolina. By this time, Ferguson had acquired the nickname of Bulldog among his militiamen and regulars, and he was highly respected. Later he fought at the Battle of Monks Corner in South Carolina and helped the British secure Charleston. Afterward, he was tasked with raising militia forces in the backcountry region of North and South Carolina. On the evening of August 18th, 1780, 200 colonial partisan cavalry under the joint command of Colonels Isaac Shelby, James Williams, and Elijah Clark prepared to raid a loyalist camp at Musgrove's Mill, which controlled the local grain supply and guarded a ford of the Ennery River. This was the Battle of Musgrove Hill, which launched on August 19th, 1780, at a ford of the Ennery River near the present-day border between Spartanburg, Lawrence, and Union Counties in South Carolina. The Colonials planned to surprise the garrison of 200, but a local farmer informed them that the loyalists had been reinforced by about 100 militia and 200 provincial regulars were on their way to join Ferguson. The battle lasted barely an hour. 63 Tories were killed, an unknown number wounded, and 70 were taken prisoner. In contrast, the mounted American force suffered only four dead and 12 wounded. It was a swift and decisive victory that helped restore American morale after American General Horatio Gates lost the Battle of Camden. As for the Americans, they covered 60 miles with Ferguson in hot pursuit before making good their escape. Shelby's cavalry and the over-mountain men crossed over the Appalachian Mountains into the territory of the Watauga Association at Sycamore Shoals in present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee. By September 10th, Ferguson established a base camp at Gilbert Town, North Carolina, and on September 19th, he ordered the Colonials to lay down their arms or he would, quote, lay waste to their country with fire and sword. He threatened towns, burned homes, and warned patriots they'd hang like dogs. The Americans accepted the challenge. On September 25th, 1780, Colonels Isaac Shelby, John Sevier, and Charles McDowell and their 600 over-mountain men had joined with Colonel William Campbell and his 400 Virginia men at Sycamore Shoals. They prepared for the Battle of King's Mountain near present-day Blacksburg, South Carolina. On October 7th, 1780, the Battle of King's Mountain began, and the Loyalists, despite being on the high ground, were easy targets. The combined American force, using fast-flanking cavalry and accurate musket fire, overpowered the British Loyalists, who had around 1,100 fighters. Sitting on the mountain ridge directing the battle, Ferguson was shot from his horse. He was shot multiple times while trying to rally his men. His foot was caught in the stirrup and he was dragged by his frightened horse over to the American side, his sword still in his hand and wearing a checkered cloak, and when a soldier asked for his surrender, Ferguson drew his pistol and shot him as a last act of defiance. The Americans retaliated, and Ferguson's body was later found with eight musket wounds. According to the Patriots' accounts, militia members stripped his body and reportedly urinated on him before burying him in an ox hide beneath a pile of stones. He was laid to rest alongside one of his mistresses, Virginia Sowell, who was also killed in the battle. The colonial militia commander, Colonel Benjamin Cleveland of North Carolina, claimed Ferguson's white stallion as a war prize and rode it home to his estate of Roundabout. After Ferguson's death, the plantation he owned was inherited by his younger brother, George, who had managed it since the early 1770s and developed it into a successful enterprise. Exports of rum, sugar, and molasses were sent back to Europe. Patrick Ferguson was survived by his mother, his brothers James and George, and sisters Annie Elizabeth Betty, Mrs. Skilmore, Wedderburn Burkill, and Jean. In the 1920s, the U.S. government erected a marker at Ferguson's grave site, which today is a part of the Kings Mountain National Military Park, administered by the National Park Service. So, why wasn't the Ferguson rifle mass-produced? Well, for one, it was simply too expensive to manufacture using the decentralized system of gunsmiths and subcontractors available at that time. The design was ahead of its era in both concept and complexity, and without Ferguson himself to champion its use, the rifle had no advocate strong enough to push it forward. In combat, his rifles often broke down. The wooden stock, especially around the lock mortise, couldn't withstand the stress of oversized lock and breach mechanisms. Most surviving military Fergusons include a horseshoe-shaped iron reinforcement under the lock to keep the stock intact, where it frequently cracked. A stronger, thicker stock made from more durable wood likely would have solved this issue. There was also the matter of maintenance. While reloading was rapid, the breech screw had to be lubricated with a mixture of beeswax and tallow. Without it, the rifle would foul quickly and often needed cleaning after just three or four shots. Yet modern testing paints a different picture. Thanks to the research of DeWitt Bailey and others, properly built reproductions using Ferguson's original specifications have proven capable of firing more than 60 consecutive rounds. Despite its potential, the Ferguson rifle faded into obscurity. The only piece ever recovered from a Ferguson rifle used in combat on American soil is a single trigger guard found at a British army camp in New York City. Even at the Battle of King's Mountain where Ferguson was killed, there is no definitive evidence that any of his rifles were used. None were recovered and no battlefield fragments have surfaced. Still, the breech-loading concept would return nearly 80 years later and become standard by the end of the Civil War. The Spencer rifle, the world's first military metallic cartridge repeating rifle, became one of the most notable examples. Over 200,000 were manufactured between 1860 and 1869 by the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company and the Burnside Rifle Company. The Union Army, particularly its cavalry, adopted the Spencer although it did not fully replace the standard muzzle-loading rifled muskets. Perhaps the best example of a more refined Ferguson-style mechanism came in the form of the Sharps rifle. Developed by Christian Sharps in 1848, these large bore single-shot falling block rifles were known for their long-range accuracy, capable of hitting targets at 1,000 yards with a .52 caliber cartridge. Production continued until 1881. Yet long before Spencer or Sharps, Patrick Ferguson had already glimpsed the future of warfare. He wasn't just a British officer, he was a visionary, a scientist of war, a man whose invention could have changed the course of battlefield dominance had he lived long enough to see it through. And perhaps nothing captures Ferguson's character more than the moment he chose not to fire on George Washington at Brandywine, a decision that would have undoubtedly altered the course of history. It wasn't just a matter of principle, it was a glimpse into the kind of man Ferguson was, disciplined, honorable, and committed to a code that often stood in contrast to the brutality of war. In the end, he wasn't just an inventor ahead of his time, he was a soldier who could have changed history, but who chose integrity over opportunity. His rifle may not have survived the era, but his story endures. Until next time, keep your powder dry and your mind sharper than a bayonet. Thank you for watching this episode of Forgotten History. If you liked what you saw, please click like, share, and subscribe. 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