Battle of Culloden

Background

The Forty-Five began when Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of the exiled James II and VII, landed on Eriskay on 23 July 1745 and raised his father's standard at Glenfinnan on 19 August. The rising was not a war of Scotland against England. Its support came largely from Highland clans and north-eastern Episcopalians, much of it driven by opposition to the 1707 Union, but it also drew Lowland units, a few hundred English recruits and French and Irish regulars in French service, while many Scots, Highland and Lowland, took the government side.

The Jacobites routed Sir John Cope at Prestonpans on 21 September, took Edinburgh and invaded England, reaching Derby on 4 December. With no English rising and no French invasion in sight, the council voted on 5 December to retreat. They beat Hawley at Falkirk on 17 January 1746 but made no headway in the siege of Stirling Castle and withdrew north to Inverness in February.

Cumberland, George II's younger son, wintered his army at Aberdeen, retrained it and moved west in spring, forcing the Spey on 12 April and camping at Nairn on the 14th. The Jacobites, short of money and food, could not afford to keep retreating and could not easily disperse without giving up Inverness and its stores. On the night of 15 April they tried to surprise Cumberland's camp while his men marked his 25th birthday; the march fell apart in the dark and was abandoned about two miles short. The exhausted army stumbled back to Drummossie Moor and formed up to fight there the next morning.

The armies

The Jacobite army was mostly Highland clan regiments, raised through the obligations of chiefs and tacksmen, with Lowland battalions, a small and worn-out cavalry force and French-service regulars: the Royal Écossais and the Irish Picquets. Its tactic was the Highland charge: a rush to close range, a volley and then broadsword and targe. That had won at Prestonpans and Falkirk, but it needed the enemy to break before the clansmen were shot down. Archaeological finds of French-calibre musket balls suggest the Jacobites had more muskets than older accounts allow. Their artillery was a 'motley collection' of 12 guns of mixed calibre, poorly served. Command was divided: Lord George Murray, the best of the Jacobite generals, did not get on with the prince or his Irish adjutant-general, O'Sullivan.

Cumberland's army was a well-balanced force of horse and foot: regular infantry battalions, regiments of horse and dragoons, and the Argyll Militia. It was not an English army. Three of its regiments, the 1st, 21st and 25th Foot, were Scottish, and the National Army Museum notes that more Scots ultimately bore arms against Charles than for him. It had ten 3-pounders and six Coehorn mortars. After Falkirk the infantry were drilled in a bayonet thrust at the man to the right, to get round the targe; that is the traditional story, and Wikipedia treats it as 'said to have been developed' rather than proven.

The battle

Deployment (morning). Cumberland's army left Nairn at about 5 a.m. and marched west across country. The Jacobites saw it at about 10 a.m., some 4 km away. They formed two lines across Drummossie Moor, a sandstone ridge about 160 m above sea level. Their right, under Lord George Murray, rested on the walls of the Culwhiniac enclosure running down towards the River Nairn; their left, nominally under the Duke of Perth, rested on the Culloden Parks walls to the north. The clan regiments stood in the front line, with the Atholl Brigade on the right, the Camerons, Stewarts of Appin, Frasers and Clan Chattan in the centre, and the MacDonald regiments on the left. The French-service regulars and cavalry formed the second and third lines. Cumberland halted about 700 m to the east and deployed in two lines of infantry with a reserve, guns in the intervals and dragoons on both wings. Between the armies lay the turf-walled Leanach enclosure and open, partly boggy moor, wettest in front of the Jacobite left.

The cannonade (about 1 p.m.). The Jacobite guns opened, and the government guns quickly answered and outshot them. How long the Jacobites stood under fire is disputed: two or three minutes by Cumberland's aide Joseph Yorke, nine by Campbell of Airds, 'nearly half an hour' by the National Army Museum's account. Pollard's analysis of the ammunition puts government fire at no more than about thirty rounds at this stage, causing perhaps 20-30 casualties.

The charge. Charles ordered the advance shortly after 1 p.m.. Clan Chattan in the centre went first; the right followed, so that the line advanced at a slant towards the government left. Ground and the track across the moor pulled the right and centre together into a dense mass that crossed the Leanach enclosure, while slight dips gave them some cover from the guns. The government guns switched to case and grape, and at about 45 m the infantry fired a volley. On the Jacobite left the MacDonalds, who had furthest to go, over the wettest ground, were halted by fire and never closed; Keppoch was killed leading them.

The breakthrough at Barrell's. The right and centre struck the government left, where Barrell's (4th) and Munro's (37th, also called Dejean's) bore the shock in savage hand-to-hand fighting; Lord Robert Kerr of Barrell's was killed. The archaeological surveys place this fighting at least 80 m further south than once believed, with shattered muskets and pistol balls marking the close combat. Some Jacobites broke through between the two regiments, only to be trapped between the front and second lines. Sempill's brigade came up from the second line, and Wolfe's (8th) and Ligonier's (59th) poured in fire from the flank.

Collapse (before 2 p.m.). Meanwhile the Argyll Militia breached the Culwhiniac walls, and Hawley's dragoons rode through behind the Jacobite right. The Jacobite army broke. The Irish Picquets, the Royal Écossais and the remaining horse covered the retreat; Brigadier Stapleton of the Picquets died of his wounds. The government line advanced over the field, killing the wounded and stragglers, and the dragoons pursued towards Inverness. The fighting had lasted less than an hour.

Aftermath

Government losses were 50 killed and 259 wounded. Jacobite losses are less certain: between 1,000 and 2,000 killed and wounded, many in the pursuit, with several hundred taken on the day. Survivors gathered at Ruthven, but on 18 April most were told to disperse. Charles hid in the Highlands and islands for five months with a £30,000 price on his head and sailed for France from Borrodale on 19 September.

The killing went on after the fighting. Historic Environment Scotland records that wounded Jacobites were reportedly dragged from shelter and shot and that barns holding wounded were burned, though accounts vary in detail. Major-General Bland's pursuit orders gave 'Quarter to None' except about fifty French officers and soldiers. Through the summer, punitive expeditions burned homes, seized cattle and destroyed Episcopalian and Catholic meeting houses, earning Cumberland the name 'the Butcher'. About 3,470 people were taken prisoner. Of some 3,500 indicted for treason, 120 were executed, many of them British Army deserters or men of the Manchester Regiment; about 650 died awaiting trial, and most of the rest were transported or released.

The Heritable Jurisdictions Act ended chiefs' legal powers, and the Act of Proscription banned Highland dress and the carrying of arms. Often called the last pitched battle on British soil, Culloden is now cared for by the National Trust for Scotland and is the most intensively surveyed battlefield in Scotland.

Wargaming it

Culloden is small, short and narrow, easy to game whole. Play it at battalion level, with one unit per clan regiment or government battalion, in turns of five to ten minutes: the whole action fits in well under ten turns. The fight at Barrell's and Munro's also works as a skirmish game of a few hundred figures a side.

The terrain decides most of it. The Culwhiniac and Culloden Parks walls fix both Jacobite flanks; the Leanach enclosure, the track and slight dips pull the Jacobite right and centre together; and the wet ground in front of the MacDonalds should slow them badly. A good scenario gives the Jacobite line its slant, with the left further from the enemy than the right.

The Jacobite player's problem is timing: how long to stand under fire before charging, and whether the whole line can be made to go at once. Rules need clan morale that drains under artillery fire, guns that become deadly once they switch to case shot, and a real chance for a charge to break the first line. The government player must decide when to feed in the second line, and whether to unleash Hawley's flank move early.

The obvious 'what if' is the night attack on Nairn: a dawn assault on a sleeping camp, fought in confusion, makes a strong separate scenario. Another is a fight on rougher ground, where the charge would have faced less grapeshot.

Maps and pictures