by Sam Heughan
The night before the battle (15th April) the rebels set off on a disastrous night march (attempting a pre-emptive strike on the Duke of Cumberland’s camp at Nairn). ‘If the night march had been successful they wouldn’t have been fighting here,’ explains Catriona.
However, they were forced to turn around after one of the two columns of men got disorientated in the dark (easily done without GPS and flashlights; don’t forget, those were still the days of natural navigation). At 2am they marched twelve miles back but were seen by the British, who set off to Culloden at 5am, knowing the rebels would be now severely weakened. (And they really were. Over a thousand men slept through the battle due to exhaustion and malnutrition.)
In order to get the full experience, let’s observe the battle through one of its participants: Alexander Campbell (yes, a Campbell, which goes some way towards dispelling the pervading myth about clan loyalties), a drover from Lochaber, thirty years of age. Alex fought with Cameron of Lochiel’s Regiment, led by Colonel Donald Cameron of Lochiel, Chief of Clan Cameron, who bore the sobriquet ‘Gentle Lochiel’ (and lived at Achnacarry Castle).
Some 700 men in the regiment stood on the right of the Highland line, a position of honour, and it was from here they would charge first towards the British lines. Alexander had marched the night before to attack Cumberland’s camp, and had returned dog-tired and dispirited amidst the monumental cock-up before the impending slaughter.
Five hundred feet above sea level, between the Moray Firth and the valley of the River Nairn, the land stretches twelve miles in a descending gradient from Loch Ness to the town of Nairn. It’s bleak and treeless. Standing there on that April morning Alexander would have felt as if he were hanging between sea and mountain, and yet with quagmire under foot – the worst of all worlds. The sleet, carried by a biting wind blowing off the North Sea, stung the faces of men who had barely slept or eaten for days. To the south-east was a ragged group of beggars, men, women and children, ready to loot the dead like crows.
The words of Psalm 20, being sung by the Jacobites, floated across the lines of men.
The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; The name of the God of Jacob defend thee;
Send thee help from the sanctuary, And strengthen thee out of Zion;
Remember all thy offerings, And accept thy burnt sacrifice; Selah.
Grant thee according to thine own heart, And fulfil all thy counsel.
We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: The Lord fulfil all thy petitions.
Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed; He will hear him from his holy heaven With the saving strength of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
They are brought down and fallen: But we are risen, and stand upright.
Save, Lord: Let the king hear us when we call.
King James Bible
They would have used the 1611 King James Bible, the English translation of the biblical text sanctioned by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s great-great-grandfather, King James I (VI Scotland), who essentially took a writing credit for the religious text. When you think of this religious history and the fervent belief that a monarch is ‘chosen by God’, it’s little wonder Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart is propelled by blind faith and religious imperative to fight and take back what is rightly his.
[Sam: The man had a name longer than Jamie Fraser; incredible!]
And, a closer inspection of the House of Stuart family tree reveals who the Bonnie Prince is actually fighting. King George II is Charlie’s third cousin (sharing James I as a great-grandfather), which makes George II’s youngest son, Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, Charlie-boy’s third cousin once removed. Okay, they’re not brothers, or first cousins – William of Orange and Mary (both Stuarts) were first cousins who married each other! But the Hanoverians and Stuarts are all related to one another, descended from James I (VI of Scotland), which arguably makes Culloden a clan feud over power and religion (Protestantism vs. Catholicism) played out on a national scale. It is the clan feud to end all feuds and, indeed, the clans themselves.
And, just as the leaders at the top are all related, so too we need an understanding of who the enemy on the ground was – and, you’ve guessed it, many were related. The Battle of Culloden was won by a British army and not an English one. The same British army that went on to win celebrated victories throughout the second half of the eighteenth century and right through the early nineteenth century, culminating in Waterloo. No fewer than four of the sixteen infantry battalions were Scottish, and there were plenty of Scottish officers as well as rank and file standing in the notionally English battalions too. Alexander would have seen men with his own surname standing 450 metres across the moor, shouting their war cry of ‘Cruachan’ (the Scottish Munro/Mountain near Loch Awe) as they killed for George II.
Of the 5,500 men of the rebel army gathered that day, many had been forced there, under the clan system, threatened with death, or at least the burning of their homes. Alexander was probably one of these men.
An example of ‘recruitment’ comes from a government intelligence report of the time:
Upon Thursday 15th August 1745 Cameron of Kinlochlyon, Cameron of Blairchierr, Cameron of Blairmachult, Cameron of Glenevis, and Cameron of Strone . . . came from Lochiel’s country and entered Rannoch with a party of servants and followers to the number of about 24 and went from house to house on both sides of Loch Rannoch . . . and intimated to all the Camerons, which are pretty numerous on both sides of the loch, that, if they did not forthwith go with them, that they would that instant proceed to burn all of their houses and hough their cattle; whereupon they carried off the Rannoch men, mostly about one hundred, mostly of the name of Cameron.
It’s fair to assume that Alexander Campbell was one of those who was dragged along who was not a Cameron; hardly the romantic notion of the Highlander keen to get to grips with the evil English. The men who stood next to Alexander were a mix of all those types: men like himself, threatened into service, alongside romantic adventurers, diehard Catholics, deserters from the English army, French sympathisers, Lowlanders and proud clansmen. Some were undoubtedly drunk. Many broadswords were inscribed with the words ‘Scotland’ or ‘No Union’ so, in one sense, the fight that day was between those who longed for independence and those who wanted a union. (Although the Bonnie Prince would have ruled Scotland, England and Ireland should he have seized the throne.) It also marked a fork in the road for Scottish independence, the struggle for a different Scotland passionately rekindled in recent years, with Sam and I both publicly advocating and campaigning for an independent Scotland.
At the front stood the clan chief, his deputy, his piper and two of the best clansmen to form a bodyguard. Those in the first rank carried long firelocks, broadswords, dirks, and targes. Some would have had land, others none, but nevertheless they were deemed to be gentlemen. The second line carried the lesser gentry, and so with the third line. Some were six lines deep. Those at the back were bare-chested men, their beards and hair making them look more like savages from another age than soldiers. Some of these men barely carried any weapons at all.
Alexander is in the fourth line armed with his broadsword, dirk and targe, his plaid (kilt) tied high between his thighs so he can run more freely. In his bonnet, the white cockade of the Stuarts, a large knot of five bows in linen or silk with a laurel wreath containing the words: ‘With Charles our brave and merciful P.R. [Prince Regent] we’ll greatly fall or nobly save our country.’ An oak leaf badge marks him as a Cameron.
Catriona points at the blue flags that identify where the Jacobite front line was, and 450 metres across the field, the government side is marked by red flags. ‘The 8,000-strong British army line up in a straight formation, two kilometres across. The 5,500-strong Jacobite army tries to mirror the British line but, at the northern end, there is
a deep bog so the Highlanders are forced to stand several hundred metres further back, breaking the line. This is to have a devastating impact on the Highland Charge,’ she explains.
Lord George Murray was also worried about a protruding low enclosure to the right. He wanted those men to be able to negotiate the obstacle quickly when the charge began so, without advising anyone else, he moved the section of the line forwards. Already affronted by not being given the honour of standing on the right of the line (as had been their reward from the time of Bannockburn), the MacDonalds simply refused to move up to make the line straight. So we have something resembling a playground squabble developing down the line. The pipes of each clan compete with one another, the wind lifting the music across the moor until, suddenly, a rebel cannon is fired high across the British lines, missing the first and second lines before cutting a soldier in half at the rear.
The battle of Culloden has begun.
Alexander stands as cannonballs sweep through the lines: a rolling fire like the sound of a dozen iron doors slamming. The balls of iron seem to hang in the sky, arcing lazily towards the waiting rebels. He watches one bounce and smash into Malcolm Cameron as he screams his defiance, his head exploding into mist, the body collapsing like a felled tree.
Alexander turns his head to the right: Clan Chattan (the Mackintoshes, MacBeans and MacGillivrays) yell their battle cries of ‘Loch Moy’ and ‘Dunmaglass’ and begin to charge. Donald Cameron screams ‘Claymore’ and now he too must rush forwards, drawing his sword. He quickens his pace towards 2,623 bayonets under 461 British ‘Redcoat’ officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) drilled in the art of platoon volleys, each battalion divided into groups of twenty to thirty men, who have been trained to fire in a sequence of murderous shots, up and down the line, like a deadly Mexican wave.
However, at Culloden, the tactic has been changed. They have been taught the art of battalion volleys, ranks of three deep firing diagonally towards the centre, with the rear rank not firing until the screaming rebel army was only twelve paces away. That takes nerve! Imagine, a man sprinting towards you, glittering steel raised, his mouth open, howling a war cry in a language you probably don’t understand. To the English private soldier these men were as terrifying as Zulu warriors. At Prestonpans, just the sight of them caused the raw recruits to break and run. At Culloden, however, the seasoned army held its nerve.
Alexander is unaware of what is happening to the left side of the Highland line. The MacDonalds have to cover 700 metres to reach the British, 250 metres more than on the right. Add to this, these men weren’t just going over boggy ground; the water went halfway up their legs.
If you’ve ever run 700 metres you know what that feels like. Now imagine running it carrying a shield and a broadsword. Hungry. Cold. Sleep-deprived. Now imagine doing it while being shelled with round shot, peppered with grape shot and musket fire. The grape shot, 3cm in diameter, is tearing into the advancing clansmen at about 100 metres. The muskets wait for the order at fifty feet. Such is the pall of smoke and mist, Alexander and his brothers-at-arms collide into men of Clan Chattan: Camerons and Mackintoshes, long-standing feudal enemies, disorientated by the fog. Alexander and Clan Cameron lurch to the left to get a clear line of attack. At twenty yards the smoke lifts and he is confronted by a long line of white-gaitered legs and Redcoats, like a crimson wall. Waiting.
SAM
The rebel front line is in disarray. ‘You want a Highland Charge to be released at the same time so it impacts at the same time,’ explains Catriona. ‘So the north needed to charge first, with the south waiting to accommodate the north’s position further back. What actually happens is after twenty minutes of sustained cannon fire, the men at the southern end want to go so they run and the line is broken.’
Once they start the charge it takes them only a couple of minutes to cover the 450-metre distance. I’m tempted to recreate this charge to see if McTavish and I can make it. To test who arrives first, without needing a snack break. Starting at a gentle jog, about halfway they fire their muskets creating a smoke screen, then they scream war cries at the top of their lungs as they sprint the last fifty metres hell for leather, sword aloft, running straight into three-rounds-a-minute musket fire in formations. The front line fires first, then there’s a six-second gap and the second line fires, then the third line, and it repeats, aimed at the legs to stop the Highlanders running.
The southern end of the charge gets to the government lines and 700 men break through Barrell and Munro’s regiment, but the Duke of Cumberland has studied the Highland Charge and knows how it works. Cumberland is up front at the northern end. Bonnie Prince Charlie is up front amidst the action too. Catriona tells us many people think he was at the back but in fact he’s right behind his front line. Both leaders are young men, Charles is twenty-six and Cumberland is ten days off his twenty-fifth birthday. Some of the ‘men’ fighting in the battle are as young as thirteen or fourteen.
The 700 rebels who break through soon find themselves encircled by soldiers led by General ‘Hangman’ Hawley and James Wolfe (of Quebec fame, of which more later!) and within two or three minutes all are dead or injured, including Frasers, McTavishes and McIntoshes (from Catriona’s family).
At that precise moment the battle is over. The Jacobite retreat is sounded and the government army chases the rebels all the way to Inverness. In the sixty-minute battle, and the three days that follow, at least 1,500 Jacobites die. British government casualties are only counted as those that arose from the sixty minutes of battle and number fifty, but the mass grave discovered at the battlefield suggests the number is more like seventy-five.
GRAHAM
The Highlanders ‘came running upon our front line like hungry wolves.’ Alexander hears an Englishman bark, ‘Make ready!’ The British front rank drop as one to their right knee. He watches the muskets rise to face him. They wait until Alexander and his men are fifty feet from them . . . ‘Fire!’ Then the second rank, ‘Fire!’ and the third, ‘Fire!’, decimating the men around him. Some throw up their plaids to shield themselves. A .75 calibre lead ball from a brown bess musket is accurate at fifty feet and the recovered bullets found by archaeologists tell a horrifying story. Many bullets show only slight traces of impact, having passed into, and often straight through the fleshy parts of the body. When the same bullet hits a bone it is flattened by the impact. At close range the red-hot lead bullet will actually take on the warp and weft of the fabric worn by the victim. Some bullets turned into the shape of a clamshell, almost split in two as they hit the hard edge of an upraised broadsword.
Despite the sustained battalion volleys, some break through the first rank, only to be cut down by the bayonets behind. But still the British lines stand firm. Big John MacGillivray of Clan Chattan smashes through, his sword arm swinging in bloody arcs, killing twelve soldiers single-handedly; he is on his way to the next battalion at the rear when he is finally cut down. Alexander can hear the sound of broadswords smashing on muskets. He ploughs through the line and encounters Colonel Rich of the Barrell’s regiment, standing on foot. The Colonel holds out his slender sword to parry Alexander but the Campbell broadsword takes off the man’s sword hand at the wrist. Alexander can only see what is in front of him, the tunnel vision of battle gripping his senses. Behind him, ‘the heather writhed with the injured and dying.’
When the collapse comes most of the Highlanders are forced to flee along the Inverness road where they received no quarter from the British cavalry pursuing them. Our hero is taken prisoner; his fate, ‘transportation’ to the colonies, common for many of the 154 rebel prisoners and 222 ‘French officers and soldiers’. Many of the rebels are hanged; those who escaped were hunted down, and their properties were burned or taken.
Much has been made of the behaviour of the British troops after the battle. It was undoubtedly a vengeful, gruesome affair. However, those British troops had learned lessons the hard way when it came to facing these particular ‘men in
kilts’. From their experience at the Battle of Falkirk they knew that they were in a brutal stand-up fight against a ruthless enemy that was guilty of murdering men in cold blood. They had seen their own Colonel Munro wounded and finished off as his brother was bandaging him. His brother was also killed on the spot.
This, and the butchery at Prestonpans, all contributed to the belief that they were not fighting chivalrous-minded professionals, but murderous thugs, and should respond accordingly. Dougal MacKenzie’s actions at the end of Prestonpans, deliberately murdering the wounded, appalled at good treatment of British prisoners, speak of this brutality.
However, in spite of the slaughter and men shot for cowardice, it is the bravery and the courage I want to think about most deeply as I stand on the battlefield side by side with Sam. And, about my own ancestors, fourteen of whom are listed in the muster rolls.
The McTavishes fought as part of the Fraser of Lovat’s group (yes, Simon the Fox Fraser, whom we met earlier). Even then my ancestors couldn’t escape the Frasers! I like to imagine one of my ancestors – bald, bearded, perhaps drinking the equivalent of an eighteenth-century latte – looking across at the man next to him, a tall ginger-haired, energetic lunatic who was probably doing one-armed press-ups just before we charged, and then afterward was there at the ‘exits’ trying to flog his branded Culloden memorabilia! [Sam: Yours were definitely wearing scarves.]
The Frasers (and McTavishes) charged with the right wing of the Highlanders along with the Camerons (those sons of dogs, dogs of the breed!), Clan Chattan, and the Stewarts of Appin. Casualties were severe with as many as 250 killed. Their colonel, Charles Fraser, was injured and then shot in cold blood either on the orders of the Duke of Cumberland, or General ‘Hangman’ Hawley (I wonder if his friends called him that to his face!). The future General Wolfe, of Quebec fame, refused to act as executioner.