History: The Scot who brought a branch of the Enlightenment to the battlefield

During the previous decades there had been regiments such as the Royal Scots and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers which were actually raised on the English establishment, because that was  the only place where they could be paid for. They did not come under any political authority in  Edinburgh either.

And then, inside the United Kingdom, Scotland’s great numbers of possible recruits subject to the nominal authority of the crown were at first no use because of suspicions about their loyalty. Both Highlanders and Lowlanders still too often ranged themselves with England’s enemies, not least in the existential Jacobite rebellions.

Those rebellions had run their course after 1745, and Germans sat securely on the English throne. What was more, the new United Kingdom had risen rapidly from being a European power manageable by its rivals to a world power that had to be feared by all its enemies.

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Prime minister William Pitt the Elder drew to Parliament’s attention that his military resources looked inadequate to this role. If he was to solve the problem he would have to call on Scotland’s fierce fighting men, who by now had outgrown their disloyalty.

Here, in the new global needs of the late 18th century, lay the origin of the roster of Scottish regiments that formed the backbone of the British army in modern times. Even then, there was an episode of higher respect for individual prowess and courage as an example to the nation’s manhood before, at the turn of the 19th century, 20 years of war against revolutionary France made mass military service an honoured part of being a Scot.

We can look at a prime example of valour from the transitional period when the Scots were still teaching the English to value the martial qualities they had brought with hem into the Union.

The crown’s forces that engaged in the American War of Independence (1776-83) were tiny by later standards, only a few thousand men at a time, many of them local loyalist volunteers. They were most numerous coming from the southern colonies where Scottish settlement was heaviest. The study by the Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, details the factors at work.

The home country of Scotland could supply officers too. The most famous was Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh, husband of Flora MacDonald, who rescued Bonnie Prince Charlie from Skye. The MacDonalds later emigrated to North Carolina, where after 1776 they organised forces for King George III in a shift of allegiance that seems bizarre beyond a Highland network of loyalties.

Major Patrick Ferguson was killed when Patriot militia defeated the Loyalist militia under his command at the Battle of Kings Mountain in North Carolina on October 7, 1780 (Image: Web)

The remaining British military authorities in the 13 rebellious colonies undertook to keep the volunteer forces supplied with adequate officer material. An example was Major Patrick Ferguson, who had already distinguished himself as one of those rare individuals the military intellectual.

The younger son of a landed family at Pitfour, Aberdeenshire, he had joined the army as a boy in time to serve in the Seven Years’ War  (1756-63). At home again during the peace, he used his spare time  to invent the Ferguson rifle, a  breach-loading flintlock that increased the speed of the soldier’s loading and firing.  Ferguson was the army’s greatest theorist on the use of light infantry. He brought a branch of the Scottish Enlightenment to the battlefield. Born in Edinburgh, he had met many of its key figures.

Ferguson went to  America in 1777 to lead an experimental rifle corps. He was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine, Pennsylvania. In 1780 he moved to North Carolina to recruit troops. He was to lead them into the backwoods of the Appalachian Mountains to stop rebels exploiting the military potential of the wilderness. 

Ferguson challenged native militias to lay down their arms or suffer the consequences. If any openly supported the cause of American independence, they  would jeopardise all peaceful possession of their land, he said.

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By now, Ferguson had won the nickname of Bulldog. His role in the wider scheme of things was to help in maintaining British dominance of the southernmost colonies from coastal bases. He would march to known loyalist areas, raise and organise units from the Tory population and in this way secure the left flank of General George Cornwallis’s main force as it advanced from Charleston, South Carolina, to Charlotte,  North Carolina.

On October 7, 1780, two units clashed in the Battle of Kings Mountain, on the inland border of the Carolinas. American rebels surprised the loyalists and inflicted severe casualties. Ferguson himself fell from his horse and, with his foot still in the stirrup, got dragged towards the enemy marksmen. 

When an American approached seeking his surrender, Ferguson drew his pistol and shot the man as a last act of defiance. This was outrageous enough to prompt retaliation, and Ferguson’s corpse was found to have eight bullets  in it. The Americans also urinated on him.

The loyalists at last gave in, but some rebels had to be restrained by officers from further killings. Though victorious, they had to retreat quickly from the area for fear of revenge from British general Marquess Cornwallis.  After a show trial, they later executed nine loyalist prisoners.  War in the wilderness could often follow the savage spirit of Scotland.

The Battle of Kings Mountain was a pivotal event in the southern campaign. The surprising rebel victory came after a string of rebel defeats at the hands of Cornwallis, and greatly raised American morale.

With Ferguson dead and his loyalist militia destroyed, the  British commander had to postpone his plan for a broad advance into Virginia. Once it finally got under way, he was cornered at Yorktown by an American army and  a French fleet.

Cornwallis surrendered, bringing an end to active British operations in the War of Independence.