Firearms took several hundred years to develop from clumsy matchlocks to the smooth bored muskets of the 1700s. These weapons were loaded by pouring black powder down the barrel from the muzzle, then jamming a lead ball down after it, with a patch of thin leather or cloth to keep the load from pouring back out if the muzzle was held down.
These muzzle loaders had an effective range of under one hundred meters. Past that, there was no guarantee where the bullet was going. They were so inaccurate that the methods of fighting with them required the opposing sides to line up and fire at each other 'en masse', with everyone aiming at the center of the enemy's line. The theory was that the normal inaccuracy would spread the bullets out to cover a significant portion of that line.
Rifles existed by the 1700s, but they were less acceptable for military use because the fouling from the black powder put them out of action much faster than happened with the smoothbores. The rifling that gave them their accuracy also slowed loading significantly, because the bullets were oversized to fit the rifling, and had to be forced down the length of the barrel with resistance from the rifling. Trained soldiers using smoothbores could achieve a rate of fire of three to five shots per minute. Soldiers with rifles could fire only one or two shots in a minute.
Armies were not really interested in rifles because of their slow rates of fire. They understood that rate of fire is often more important than accuracy, though they recognized the utility of accuracy in some applications. The British Army came to equip a rifle Brigade during the Napoleonic wars. This was not a unit for the main line of battle, however. They couldn't reload fast enough to hold their own in a toe to toe battle.
The British lost the opportunity to field a functional, rapid loading, accurate rifle during the American War for Independence, even after it had been used in battle.
Patrick Ferguson was born into a middle class family in Aberdeenshire, Scotland in May or June 1744. He entered the Army at the age of 15 and was posted to Germany with the Scots Greys as a Cornet. He had health difficulties throughout his career, beginning with Tuberculosis while in Germany. This left him with a slightly crippled leg and some time off to recover.
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