Scottish Battles

The Battle Of Culloden

When the Jacobite army lined up on Drumossie Moor on 16th April 1746, their stomachs were empty, they were exhausted from their night march the failure of which had undermined their already fragile morale, and they were heavily outnumbered, almost two to one.
On the right of the Jacobite line stood the Athollmen and this place of honour had been given them at the request of their leader Lord George Murray. To their left were the Appin Stewarts and then the Frasers. Next came Clan Chattan and the Farquharsons, followed by a regiment consisting of men of mixed clans, Roy Stewart's regiment and finally on the left the Macdonalds. Ever since Bannockburn the MacDonalds had claimed the right of the Scottish line as their own and this morning they were still bitter at losing their place to Lord George Murray's Athollmen. There was a second line but the fury of the charge was such that the first line was the more important. In the second line were the Irish and Scots soldiers of the French king, the Ogilvies, the Duke of Perth's regiment, Lord Gordon's men and assorted units of horse.

The government's first line consisted of Pulteney's regiment on the right facing the Macdonalds, then the Royals, Cholmondley's, Price's, the Fusiliers, Munro's and Barrel's on the left. It was common in those days for regiments to be named after their commander. The second line consisted of (from right to left) Battereau's, Howard's, Fleming's, Conway's, Bligh's, Sempill's and Wolfe's. Two battalions were held in reserve.

At the southern end of the field, between the armies and the water of the River Nairn, were two enclosures bound by a stone wall. This wall, almost the height of a man, stretched from the extreme left of the first government line to the rear of the right flank of the second Jacobite line. It was a terrible oversight on the part of the Jacobites to have left the wall standing. This failure to have the wall pulled down would have a dramatic effect on the action that followed.

The battle began, some say, with a shot from a Jacobite gun probably trying to hit Lord Bury, a government officer who had ridden out to make a last reconnaisance of the field. The shot was unsuccessful and now the government guns opened up in reply. The Jacobite guns were few, short on ammunition and manned by inexperienced or poorly trained men. The government artillery was just the opposite and within ten or fifteen minutes all the rebel guns had been silenced. Soon the government roundshot were tearing into the tightly packed ranks of clansmen waiting for the order to charge. No order came and the men stood in impotent fury as their ranks were thinned again and again by the enemy cannonballs.

To have restrained the clans in their desire to charge was foolishness of the highest degree. It can only be explained by the lunacy of Prince Charlie in taking personal command of the army on that day. Never before had he commanded troops in battle and the victories of Prestonpans and Falkirk that had struck such terror into the redcoats were the work of Lord George Murray, an able soldier and one who knew his men like no other. Prince Charles' assumption of command was the result of vanity perhaps, idiocy more probably, a total inability to understand the circumstances of the fight that was to be fought most certainly. It was a disaster. Charles chose the field himself - a mistake. He listened to the hysterical rantings of his Quartermaster General the Irish O'Sullivan - a greater mistake. He held back his men in the face of a killing cannonade - perhaps the greatest mistake.

Eventually, the men went themselves. Clan Chattan were the first to go forward. Punished by the government guns their discipline broke and they surged towards the enemy yelling "Claymore!", the order to charge. The tunes of the pipers rent the air until closing with the enemy line the pipers gave their pipes to an apprentice, pulled out their swords and rushed forward with the other men of their name. The Jacobite line was not exactly parallel to the government one but set at a slightly oblique angle. As such the clansmen charged with a slight slant to their left. In the middle of the field the Camerons and Appin Stewarts bumped into Clan Chattan and seemed to recoil off to the right. This pushed the Athollmen towards the stone wall.

Earlier, Campbell Militiamen and a force of dragoons had entered the the enclosures on the left of the government line. They had gone forward and torn down the wall at the western end, almost in the rear of the Jacobite position. Here they found a deep sunken road they were unable to cross and Jacobite horse on the other side ready to dispute their passage. The outflanking manoeuvre by the dragoons failed but the Campbell Militia now lined the stone wall and were in enfillade - that most dangerous of positions to an attacker where his flank is exposed to the fire of enemy troops. The Duke of Cumberland was not a great soldier but he was careful and more cognisant of military necessity than his distant cousin on the other side of the field. He ordered Wolfe's regiment to march forward, and place their backs against the stone wall and thus form an 'L-shape' with Barrell's regiment. It was a trap that the Athollmen could neither see (with all the smoke of battle) nor counter, but one that they had to enter if they were to come to grips with the redcoats.

As Clan Chattan neared the government line the redcoats began to fire. Along the line the front ranks of each battalion knelt, brought up their Brown Bess muskets and fired. Stepping aside and to the back and kneeling down to reload, they made way for the second rank to fire. Then the third rank and once more the first rank. Soon the soldiers faces were stained by the powder from the cartridges which they had to bite open in order to reload. The government fire rolled along the seven battalions of foot in the first government line again and again and as the artillery had switched from roundshot to grapeshot (nails, pieces of iron and suchlike) the effect on the charging clansmen was brutal. There were twenty-one officers in Clan Chattan when the charge began and eighteen of them were to die, most before they reached the government line. Incredibly though, some of them managed to cut their way through the ranks of Cholmondley's battalion and came up on the second line of government troops. Fighting singly, their hopeless fury ended on the points of government bayonets driven home by the men of Howard's or Fleming's.

On the right of the Jacobite line the Athollmen , the Appin Stewarts, the Camerons and Frasers rushed towards the battalions of Barrell's and Munro's. Barrell's men had fought at Falkirk and had been one of the few battalions not to run away. Having successfully held a Highland charge before, they were confident they could do it again. It was a great misfortune indeed that the most powerful section of the charge and the part with the least distance to cross should be faced with a battalion sure of itself and with less fear than most. The Athollmen never reached the government line. From behind the shelter of the stone wall, the Campbell Militia poured fire into the flank of the Athollmen. Running past that threat they then passed in front of Wolfe's battalion and again were savaged by flanking fire this time much more intense and deadly. The Athollmen fell back.

The Frasers were halted by grapeshot and musketry but the Camerons and Appin Stewarts crashed into the men of Munro's and Barrell's. The ranks of the clansmen had been severely reduced by the the time the clash came and though the fight was long and bloody both battalions held. Some parts of Barrell's fell back in the face of the killing broadswords but they did not break. They simply retired a few yards and formed up on Sempill's battalion behind them and continued the fight. Lord George Murray tried to bring up elements of the second Jacobite line but it was impossible to advance through the now retreating Camerons and Stewarts. Just at that moment, the Campbells again popped up from behind the stone wall, fired four volleys and then clutching thier broadswords charged into the dazed bands of retiring Jacobites.

The Macdonalds on the left of the Jacobite line went forward when they heard Clan Chattan charge. They had, however, a greater distance to cross and the ground was broken and uneven in front of them. Again the grapeshot and musketry had a terrible effect and maybe one third of the Macdonalds had fallen before they were a hundred paces from the redcoats.Their charge was not one single advance but more a series of rushes. They ran forward, stopped, fired their muskets and pistols and went forward again. in front of the government line they stopped again and fell back, a simple feint intended to draw the government infantry after them in pursuit. It didn't work, and standing in front of the redcoat line they were easy targets and cut down in great numbers, much to the amusement of government officers. By this time the Jacobite right had already begun to retire and when redcoated cavalry in the shape of Kingston's horse came up round the right of the government line and threatened the Macdonalds on their left flank, the clansmen broke and ran. Highlanders had always had a great fear of mounted men in large numbers and the Macdonald retreat became a panicked rout. The battle was not quite over yet but at that moment when the clansmen turned their backs on the government line and started to drift or run away, Jacobitism was a threat no longer to the Hanoverian dynasty and a chapter of British history came to an end.

The battle continued though and Walter Stapleton, commander of the Scots and Irish soldiers in the service of the King of France and now standing on the left of the second Jacobite line, saw the Macdonalds break and start to run. He must have known then that the battle was lost but still he determined to try and prevent it becoming a rout. His men opened their ranks to let the fleeing Macdonalds pass through them and then reformed to meet the pursuing English horse. The redcoated cavalry was held and the Scots-Irish infantry began a slow retreat. Seven times they turned and faced their pursuers and each time successfully blunted the attack. On the left of the Jacobite line, the 500 dragoons in the enclosures finally crossed the sunken road and into the rear of the Jacobite position. Here they were faced by about sixty men of Fitzjames Horse and a handful of foot under Gordon of Avochie who even against such great odds managed to slow the dragoons attack. The English horse under Henry Hawley, who had lost the battle of Falkirk, seemed disinclined to press their attack with much courage though they were to prove enthusiastic butchers of wounded Jacobites when the battle was over. There can be no doubt that many clansmen's lives were saved by these determined rearguard actions at either end of the Jacobite line. Walter Stapleton was terribly wounded in the attack by Kingston's horse and died some weeks later. when his men finally surrendered later that morning he appealed directly to Cumberland for quarter for his men. This was granted as they were soldiers of a foreign king and as such not rebels against King George. There was to be no quarter for the clansmen.

Barely an hour had passed since the opening of the battle when finally the redcoats were ordered to stop firing and rest their muskets. The cannon ceased fire soon after. Cumberland rode before his men in triumph praising their courage and no doubt savouring their cheers of "Billy, Billy." Then the government line moved forward and took formal possession of the field of battle. It was over; the battle, the rising of 1745 and the Stuart claim to the British throne.

A surgeon in the government army made a personal count of the Jacobite dead on the field and reckoned the number to be around 750. This is certainly a low estimate as many had crawled off to die elsewhere. Higher estimates put the number of rebel dead at 2,000 and if this is so it represents almost a half of those who had stood for Prince Charlie on that day. A more probable figure would be somewhere in the region of 1,500. According to figures later published by the government only fifty of Cumberland's men had been killed and another 259 wounded.

It was the last battle to be fought
on the soil of mainland Britain.
God grant that we never have to see another.

The government's retribution for a half century of bloody rebellion began almost before the smoke of battle had cleared from the field. Wounded clansmen, with the terrible injuries that grapeshot and musket balls at close range can induce, littered Drummossie Moor. Cumberland ordered that no quarter was to be shown to those who had entered into a treasonous adventure against the king and presently the bayonets of the redcoats finished the work begun by the artillery and musketry of the government line. There is little honour in the slaying of wounded, helpless men and a young James Wolfe, the later conqueror of Quebec, refused to participate. Most of his comrades in arms took to the task with gusto. The field was methodically searched and any Jacobites found despatched with bayonet, sword or pistol. More than 150 men were executed this way. In one farmhouse outbuilding were found 32 wounded Jacobites and the government troops locked the doors, set fire to the building and burned them all alive. The road to Inverness along which the broken Jacobites had fled could be followed by the scores of corpses that lined its way. Cumberland's cavalry had eagerly pursued their foes and ridden down those not fast enough to escape. There were many women and children among the corpses for neither age nor sex was a protection against the vengeful fury of the government army.

It was just the beginning and in the following weeks and months a redcoated reign of terror would sweep through the Highland glens, officially searching for rebels but in reality one vast great wave of murder, rape and pillage. When it was over the clan system would be gone forever. The chiefs who had come out for the Young Pretender were attainted for treason and their lands declared forfeit to the crown. Some of them went to the headsman's block. The heritable jurisdictions, the legal basis for a chief's power over his clan were abolished and as some clans had fought for the government, the chiefs of these were given compensation. No longer was the word of a chief law in his glen and with the building of more roads and forts the penetration of southern commerce, law and order overlaid the old ways of the mountains and finally subdued them.

The carrying of arms was banned by the government and breaking of the ban was punishable by death. Likewise the wearing of the plaid, kilt or any kind of tartan and even the playing of bagpipes were made illegal. The Highlanders threw away their weapons, dyed their plaids and sewed them up into poor renderings of trousers. To be a warrior and wear the cloth of his fathers was now open only to these young men who joined the Highland regiments that were raised for the service of the crown overseas. Many did and the martial story of the Highlands did not die at Culloden but was changed in form and location. From the Heights of Abraham by Quebec to the relief of Lucknow in India, from the field of Waterloo in Belgium to the valley of the Alma in the Crimea, Highland regiments were always in the forefront of Britain's military triumphs.

The Young Pretender himself escaped from the battle of Culloden and spent five months wandering the Highlands while the redcoats searched for him. The astonishing sum of 30,000 pounds was offered for his capture, but no-one betrayed him. Many men paid for their silence with their lives. He was spirited away to the Isle of Skye by Flora Macdonald and she paid for her assistance by imprisonment in an English gaol. Finally, from the same beach where he was landed, he was picked up by a French warship and taken to the safety of France. He died in exile in Rome and by then he was no lomger the dashing hero of legend and song but a dissolute drunk.

Of all the many songs celebrating or lamenting the Jacobite risings, perhaps the most poignantly beautiful is the Skye Boat Song.

"Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing,
Onward the sailors cry,
Carry the lad that's born to be king,
Over the sea to Skye,

Loud the winds howl loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air,
Baffled our foes stand on the shore,
Follow they will not dare.

Many's the lad fought on that day,
Well the claymore did wield,
When the night came silently lay,
Dead on Culloden field."

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