Word of the vaunted marksmanship of American hunters and soldiers, and the accuracy of their long rifles, spread across the pond. So Ferguson devoted himself to producing a weapon that would enable British troops to outshoot those potential rebels. The standard “Brown Bess” musket issued to soldiers of the Crown was a long, heavy, inaccurate, smooth-bore flintlock muzzle-loader, and using it involved a series of elaborate steps that entailed remaining upright and exposed to enemy fire. Ferguson wanted a weapon that was safer, faster and more deadly. Starting with a model devised by Isaac de la Chaumette, a Frenchman living in England, he perfected the first practical breech-loading rifle in the history of warfare.

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Ferguson’s rifle did away with awkward manipulation of the ramrod, the exercise that brought on so many casualties among troops using the Brown Bess. The key to its success was a screw-type breech lock, operated by simply rotating the trigger guard. It could be loaded safely and quickly in four steps: Turn the guard to open the breech; lean the muzzle forward; drop the ball, then the powder charge into the chamber; and turn the guard to close the breech. A rifled barrel made the weapon vastly more accurate. As a bonus, the Ferguson weighed only 7 1/2 pounds, nearly 3 pounds less than the Brown Bess.

Practicing with his new breech-loading rifle, Captain Ferguson became so adept that he “almost exceeded the bounds of credibility,” winning renown as the best shot in the British army. He could get off seven aimed rounds in a minute, more than twice the average soldier’s rate with a muzzle-loader. Typically, the army bureaucracy was skeptical of any improvement in weaponry that might require new thinking and more money. To convince his seniors, in June 1776 Ferguson demonstrated his rifle to a party of lords and generals at Woolwich, site of the Royal Military Academy, across the Thames from London.

Though lashed by high winds and drenched by heavy rain, Ferguson fired a series of rounds at different distances, some at six a minute. He got off four shots a minute while advancing at 4 miles an hour. He poured a bottle of water into the weapon, thoroughly wetting his powder, then got off another shot within 30 seconds, without extracting the ball. Finally he lay on his back and hit the bull’s eye. In the entire performance, he missed his targets only three times. The skeptical officials were so impressed that they told King George III, who witnessed another such exhibition and promptly awarded Ferguson a patent for his efficient new rifle.

His Majesty, his generals and Ferguson were eager to rush this formidable weapon into the field against the rebels, but those were the days before mass production. The rifle would not equip an army, or even a full regiment, in time to matter in America. Ferguson was given command of a single company, only 100 men, whom he diligently trained to become expert with his rifle. Sent to America, he recruited more marksmen from different regiments in General William Howe’s army. Their first serious combat was at Brandywine Creek.

The day after Ferguson passed up the chance to shoot the stately American officer with the high cocked hat, a patriot ball shattered his right elbow. A surgeon who had attended wounded American officers told Ferguson that General Washington had been out just before the battle with light troops, escorted only by a French officer in hussar dress, and wearing exactly the uniform Ferguson had seen across his rifle sights. The surgeon’s revelation prompted Ferguson to reflect on his decision not to fire; he was unsure what he would have done if he had recognized that Washington was his target. “I am not sorry that I did not know at the time who it was,” he wrote.

Some doubting scholars have maintained that the near-victim of Ferguson’s marksmanship could not have been Washington. They asserted that no commanding general would have been riding without armed escort so close to the enemy. But later researchers found a letter from Washington’s headquarters to Congress confirming that “His Excellency” was “out reconnoitering and busily engaged.” And the Polish hero Count Casimir Pulaski, recently arrived from France, did in fact dress as a hussar, and he was with Washington as an aide de camp until being sent into action later on that crucial day. The novelist James Fenimore Cooper would write that his father-in-law, serving with Ferguson, believed the near-victim was Pulaski, rather than Washington. But Cooper’s account had dates and other details wrong. Apparently the evidence will never be conclusive, but it leans strongly toward Washington, who was the only ranking American officer in the vicinity.

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