The Battle of Culloden - The Government Army

He gave us this charge, that if we had time to load so to do, and if not, to make no delay but to drive our bayonets into their bodies and make sure work.

A government soldier on his commander's order before the battle

At 5.00am on the morning of 16th April, 1746 the beat of the drums summoned the army of King George to the march. There were almost 9,000 of them arrayed in sixteen battalions of foot, three regiments of horse, an artillery company and the Argyll Militia. It was not an English army but a government one and of the foot battalions three were lowland Scots, one Irish and the Argyll Militia was raised from the Cambell lands in the west of Scotland.

The common soldier that made up the army's ranks came usually from the lowest levels of society and most of them had enlisted for economic reasons. Some had even been pressed into service. The soldier enlisted for a period of three years and for this received a bounty of four pounds sterling. For the privilege of risking his life in the king's service a soldier was paid sixpence a day and from this twopence was stopped to pay for his uniform and equipment. The basic rations he was allotted were inadequate and often inedible so more of his meagre wages went on food. He wore a wide-skirted heavy coat of scarlet similarly coloured breeches and white or grey gaiters above his black, buckled shoes. On his head there was a black three-cornered hat that gave little relief from sun or rain and round his neck was a constricting leather stock designed to ensure he kept his head up and facing forward. On his white belt were slung a cartridge pouch, a short curved sword and a 16 inch bayonet of fluted steel. Though the average soldier was literate enough to write his own name he had had little schooling in anything other than the arts of war and for the footsoldier these were not particularly complicated.

He carried a Brown Bess musket that weighed just over five kilos, had a barrel just over a metre long and fired a 37 gram ball of lead from a bore of 0.735 inch. It was completely ineffective at anything over 300 paces and at distances less than that only an expert could expect to hit a reasonable target. Its effectiveness lay in the contolled fire of large groups of men 100 or even 200 discharging their weapons on command at the same time. The infantryman was expected to stand his ground as an enemy advanced, withstand his opponents artillery fire and musketry, then after volleys of his own fire go forward in tightly packed ranks with the bayonet. The key to this was the ability to maintain a disciplined tight formation, in either offence or defence, in the face of sometimes withering enemy fire. It was a lottery with survival as the only prize.

In the Duke of Cumberland's army that day were men who had stood solidly against the French roundshot at Fontenoy two years previously and joked that the approaching cannonballs looked like so many black puddings. Fontenoy had been a bloody defeat for the British but the men had aquitted themselves well. There were others in the army who had run like rabbits before the Highland charge at Falkirk just a few months before. As they moved off from their camp at Nairn, the three regiments of horse in column on the left, the sixteen battalions of foot in three columns between the cavalry on the left and the sea on the right, the Argyll Militiamen slipping through the heather in skirmishing line ahead, perhaps both Fontenoy and Falkirk veterans prayed that this day would be different.

Of all Cumberland's men it was the artillery that would do the most execution that day. At 34 years of age Brevet Colonel William Bedford, commander of the ordnance was a dedicated, skillful gunner who had seen service at Carthagena, Dettingen and Fontenoy. His artillerymen were better trained and more professional than anything the Highlanders had ever faced in their half century of sporadic rebellion against the crown. Bedford had ten 3 pounder cannon which he was to place in the front line by pairs. To the rear he kept some other three pounders and his cohorn mortars. The barrels of the 3 pounders were just over a metre long and into each was placed a pound and a half (675g) of powder. A 3 pound (1350g) ball of iron was then rammed home. Some powder was placed in the touchhole and the beast was ready to fire. After each shot, the barrel was swabbed out with a wet sponge to cool it down and the process began again. A roundshot could tear a man apart and do the same to the men in the ranks behind him. Sometimes the cannonballs bounced and did even greater execution. The muzzle velocity was not great and usually the roundshot could be seen coming. Against dispersed or dug-in troops the effect would have been negligible, against tightly packed ranks only a few hundred yards away they would prove devastating.

Return To The Battle of Culloden