Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) (45 page)

The tired and hungry clansmen stood all day with just a biscuit each at midday, waiting for Cumberland to come.
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Lochiel’s Camerons suffered particularly, for they had arrived at Inverness only on the evening of the 14th, after a fifty-mile march from Fort William. The prince tried to lift their spirits by riding along the lines with words of encouragement. He was dressed in a tartan jacket and
buff
waistcoat, trying hard to get across the morale-raising point that he was the true heir apparent to the Scottish throne.
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In the late afternoon the men were dismissed.

The choice of Drummossie Moor as the battlefield was the prince’s own, for at last he intended to command his troops in person. It was bitterly attacked by Lord George Murray and the clan chiefs as unsuitable ground for their men to act on. Acting on the ‘professional’ counsel of O’Sullivan, who advised him that his left wing would be protected by a morass, Charles Edward insisted on drawing up his men on this strip of open moorland one mile to the south-east of Culloden House. He turned down Lord George’s far better battlefield – a stretch of rough and open ground near Dalcross Castle, where Cumberland would not be able to make full use of his cannon. The prince was playing into Cumberland’s hands, giving him exactly the sort of terrain he would have prayed for, rejecting the ground that favoured the Highlanders.

Having turned down his lieutenant-general’s choice of battleground, the prince felt bound to support him in the wrangle that now broke out over who should have the right wing. The MacDonalds claimed this as their time-honoured right in clan armies. But Lord George Murray insisted that he must have the Athollmen with him on the right. The prince settled the argument in Murray’s favour.

This was not the only problem that beset the 5,000 or so troops actually available to the prince. The Glengarry men were still smarting at the loss of Angus Og at Falkirk. The Macleans, deprived of the leadership of Sir Hector, were disputing over the military command of the clan. And above all other issues loomed that of commissariat. Hay of Restalrig protested to his critics that he had assembled a granary of corn in Inverness. He denied indignantly that he had not seen fit to convert it into bread, but was forced to admit he had not provided the waggons to bring the bread from Inverness to Culloden House.

With so many question marks against his army, it is not surprising to find the prince on the 15th developing an obsessive interest in a night march to surprise Cumberland. He was described as ‘cajoling’ the chiefs to fall in with a scheme for a dawn attack on Cumberland’s camp at Balbair on the outskirts of Nairn.
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At first the prince made little progress with his advocacy. The clan chiefs refused to consider the idea until reinforcements arrived. Lord George spent the time arguing for another battlefield which Brigadier Walter Stapleton and Colonel Ker of Graden had reconnoitred, on the south side of the river Nairn.
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This was eminently suitable terrain for the Highlanders.
But
neither now nor later would the prince entertain any scheme that smacked of withdrawal in face of Cumberland.
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The arrival of Keppoch from Lochaber late on the afternoon of the 15th, plus reports from spies that all was quiet in the enemy camp, changed the aspect of affairs.
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A shift in attitude to the night march proposal became perceptible. The prince immediately called a council, his first since Crieff. At first there were still many solid objections to the proposal. Its feasibility was questioned: surely Cumberland’s patrols would spot the oncoming Jacobites and alert the duke? And did they really have sufficient numbers for the enterprise? If the attack failed, it would be difficult to rally the clansmen in the dark. The retreat would be a shambles. They would have to carry off the wounded with cavalrymen on their heels. All in all, the prospect of a fatiguing march, a do-or-die assault and then possibly a twenty-mile retreat seemed daunting.
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The prince hit back at his critics. He asked them whether they could really doubt the outcome of a furious hand-to-hand engagement, clansman versus regular, in a situation where Hanoverian gunnery could not be brought to bear. And he adduced one of his favourite fantasies. Since, he alleged, there were large numbers of secret Jacobite sympathisers among Cumberland’s rankers, the confusion of darkness would make it possible for them to sabotage the duke’s efforts. At the very least, in pitch blackness their half-heartedness could not be detected.
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At this Perth and Lord John Drummond declared themselves in favour, provided the night march could be accomplished by 2 a.m. They pointed out that, if successful, the Jacobites could solve their food supply problems by pillaging Cumberland’s stores.
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The leader of the Mackintoshes supported the prince by claiming that their clansmen could lead the Jacobites across the moor all the way, shunning houses. This route, across Culraich Moor, also gave them the means of a secure withdrawal in case of repulse. Besides, the enemy would not dare to follow them until daylight, so, provided the attack was launched between 1 and 2 a.m., they would be safe. By dawn the retreating clansmen would have reached Culraich and the hilly ground on the south side of the river, where they could not easily be pursued.
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Lord George Murray then intervened to ask if the prince was still determined to fight on Drummossie Moor instead of crossing the Nairn to the Ker/Stapleton battlefield and waiting for the rest of the Highlanders to arrive. The prince said that the supply situation gave them no choice. If they did not engage the enemy by the afternoon
of
the 16th at the latest, the clansmen would have dropped in their tracks through starvation.

Regarding Drummossie Moor as a suicidal field of battle – for they could foresee the consequences if Cumberland’s artillery got on to such easy terrain – Lord George and Lochiel reluctantly agreed to the night attack.
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Since the prince would not agree to wait for his other units, anything was better than fighting on the open moor.

The final plan was elaborated. After encircling the town of Nairn, Lord George and the first Jacobite wave would attack Cumberland’s camp on the east and north, in the rear. Murray intended to cross the river Nairn about two miles short of the town, march along the south bank to avoid Hanoverian outposts, then recross the river a mile farther on. From there he would fall upon the flank and rear of the English cavalry. The remaining two-thirds of the army were to keep to the north bank of the Nairn almost until they came to the camp. Then they would turn to branch off to the left, in a line extending to the sea, and launch a simultaneous attack on the infantry. This second wave, from the south and west, would consist mainly of Perth’s and the Irish troops.
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The prince would then support Perth’s frontal attack with the reserve.
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It was an ingenious plan. No muskets would be used; the attack would be made with broadswords. The clansmen would fall silently on their sleeping foe, slashing guy-ropes, overturning tents, cutting into the human bulges within.
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But there were still those who insisted that leaving Culloden at dusk and travelling eight miles across difficult moorland would not leave enough time for an attack before daybreak. Lord George Murray solved this objection peremptorily by saying that he would answer for the scheme’s feasibility.
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Things began to go badly wrong before ever the columns set out on the night march. At 7 p.m. the clansmen, who were resting without tents on a dry hill near Culloden House, cold, hungry and dispirited, began to stream off in large numbers towards Inverness in search of food.
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It proved impossible for their officers to recall them. The clansmen defied their superiors to shoot them, remarking that if they were to die, it were better by gunshot than from starvation.
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When the prince learned this, he gave immediate orders to march. A good general would have abandoned the attempt at this point.

At the beginning of the march, the prince manifested distinct manic tendencies. An exploit like this touched the deep springs of Charles Edward’s imagination. Bold, attacking strategy, this was ever the stuff to bring his positive impulses to the fore. The charm, so long dormant during the ordeal of early 1746, briefly surfaced again. His
remarks
to Lord George give a lightning flash of the Charles Edward of Moidart eight months before:

‘Lord George, you can’t imagine, nor can I express to you, how acknowledging I am of all the services you have rendered me. But this will crown all. You’ll restore the king by it. You’ll have all the honour and glory of it. It is your work. It is you imagined it, and be assured that the king nor I will never forget it.’
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In an effusive gesture of friendship, the prince placed his arm around Murray’s neck. He then walked beside him a long way, charming and flattering. The response from the cold and aloof Murray was typical. He said not a word in reply, but stiffly took off his bonnet and made a low bow.
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Even allowing for the deference due to the Prince Regent by indefeasible right, this degree of reserve by Murray was odd; he might at least have mumbled a homily in reply.

After firing the heather around Culloden to make the enemy think they were still there, the army marched out in a single column, the rear about a mile from the van. Lord George had the van, Lord John Drummond was in the centre. Perth was in the rear with Charles Edward and Fitzjames’s horse.
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The Mackintoshes were in the front and rear to prevent straggling. Small parties were sent out to seize all adjacent roads so that Cumberland could not be tipped off.
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It had originally been intended that three separate columns should approach Nairn by three different routes, but owing to the incompetence of the Mackintosh guides, only one route was followed. Inevitably, delays resulted. After only a mile orders were sent to the vanguard to slow down.
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The Irish troops in the service of France were not used to the Highlanders’ furious pace and could not keep up. Another serious bottleneck was caused by a wall in Culraich wood which the Mackintoshes had not taken into account in their optimistic estimates. This stone wall prevented the Athollmen from going three abreast. They were reduced to single file.
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By 1 a.m., when the attack should have been starting, Lord George Murray and the van had progressed just six miles and were still four miles short of their target.
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Murray claimed he had already received ‘one hundred’ messages to slow down while crossing Culraich.
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Apart from the heavy going underfoot and the thick fog, the Irish picquets and Royal Scots had proved useless at the kind of marching that was second nature to the clan irregulars. They even insisted on marching in full battle order.

There were other impediments. The bog on the moorland was splashy. The clansmen had to make frequent turns and detours to
avoid
houses. There were also two or three dykes that took a long time to pass.
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It became quite obvious that the Mackintosh guides had never really had any true idea of how long it would take to march ten miles across this moor.

The last straw for Lord George was when Lord John Drummond came galloping up a mile before the intended river crossing with yet another message to slow down.
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Murray sent Lochiel back to Charles Edward to suggest that time had already run out on them and the march had better be abandoned.
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Lochiel added his own worries, telling the prince that many of his Camerons had deserted under cover of the fog.
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The appearance of Lochiel with Lord George’s plea to retreat was too powerful a reminder of Derby, where these two men in his father’s age group had ruined him, as he saw it. All the prince’s positive impulses, in evidence at the beginning of the march, went into reverse. Struggling to control his rage, he rebuked Lochiel sharply and turned down all idea of a retreat: ‘I’ll answer for the men, but I am surprised that you are the man chosen to bring me such a message.’
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The prince ordered O’Sullivan and Perth to go back and talk to Lord George. Riding hard, they overtook him by the farm of Knockbuie or the Yellow Knoll, a little to the east of the ancient mansion of Kilravock, about a mile before the spot where Murray intended to cross the river.
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The hopeless situation was immediately clear to Perth. He and his brother Lord John agreed that any further advance was impracticable. They could not possibly reach the enemy before daybreak. But O’Sullivan, knowing how his master’s mind worked, repeated the prince’s adamant orders, that the attack could be called off only if compelling reasons were shown.
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Knowing the storm that would follow, Lord George insisted on having the opinions of all the officers present canvassed and recorded.
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Except for O’Sullivan, Sir John MacDonald and the officers who had volunteered for the first wave, they were unanimous for calling off the advance. To a man, the clan leaders pointed out that they could not conceivably attack in force before daylight. If the van pressed on, they could attack on their own. But what could 1,200 men do against 8,000, even with the element of surprise? Another consideration was that for three miles around Nairn the ground was open moor with hard dry soil.
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The Jacobites were on the horns of a dilemma. If they waited for the whole army to come up and then attacked at daylight, they would be annihilated in such conditions.
If
they attacked with just the van, they would be eaten up by superior numbers.