Eyewitnesses have left their testimony
that, seeing a bird alight on a bough or rail, he would drop his
bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it in the air, catch and aim
it as it fell, and shoot the bird's head off. He was given
command of a corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of the
Brandywine in 1777 he rendered services which won acclaim from
the whole army. For the honor of that day's service to his King,
Ferguson paid what from him, with his passion for the rifle, must
have been the dearest price that could have been demanded. His
right arm was shattered, and for the remaining three years of his
short life it hung useless at his side. Yet he took up swordplay
and attained a remarkable degree of skill as a left-handed
swordsman.
Such was Ferguson, the soldier. What of the man? For he has been
pictured as a wolf and a fiend and a coward by early chroniclers,
who evidently felt that they were adding to the virtue of those
who fought in defense of liberty by representing all their foes
as personally odious. We can read his quality of manhood in a few
lines of the letter he sent to his kinsman, the noted Dr. Adam
Ferguson, about an incident that occurred at Chads Ford. As he
was lying with his men in the woods, in front of Knyphausen's
army, so he relates, he saw two American officers ride out.
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