Ferguson, Patrick, soldier and inventor of the breech-loading gun, born at Pitfour, Aberdeenshire; served in the English army in Germany and Tobago; brought out his new rifle in 1766, which was tried with success in the American War of Independence; rose to be a major, and fell at the battle of King's Mountains, in South Carolina (1744‒1780).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Ferguson, James * Ferguson, Robert