On the morning of April 14 the drums began to beat and the pipes to sound through the streets of Inverness, and with Charles Edward at their head the Highlanders marched out of the town towards Culloden. On the 15th the Prince brought his army to Drummossie-Moor, with a view to engaging the enemy there. But the ground was flat and heathy and unsuitable for the method of attack most favoured by the Highlanders. Lord George Murray pleaded for more rugged and boggy country to disconcert the English cavalry, but Charles, tired of long waiting, was obdurate. It was decided that a night attack was under the circumstances the wisest plan of action. To attack the enemy crippled in artillery and cavalry work was on the surface a wise course, and accordingly about eight o'clock on that evening, Rob heard the order to prepare to march. It was with heavy steps that the Highlanders formed up, for only one biscuit per man had been served out that day and they were utterly exhausted for want of food. Moreover it was regarded as unwise to attack without the Mackenzies, the Frasers, the Macphersons, the Macgregors and Glengarry's men, all of whom were supposed to be hastening to Inverness.
However, the prospect of a night attack was sufficient to send them along with good heart, and so the twelve-mile march began, and all through the black night tramped the silent army, stumbling, falling, straying from the road, until the dawn gleamed faintly in the east and they realized that the plan had failed. To meditate attack under such circumstances was to court utter disaster. There was nothing for it but to return. The surprise had failed. The Prince, white and tired, seemed on the point of tears. All around him were haggard faces and lagging feet. Hardly a word was spoken. It was in sober truth the retreat of a beaten army....
The clansmen, now utterly exhausted, strayed back to Inverness in search of food. Many dropped in deep slumber upon the ground. In Culloden House the Prince sat in the deepest dejection. Not long after news reached him that the English forces were advancing. Once again the clans were gathered—messages were sent to Inverness to hasten the stragglers—everything was done to put as brave a face on it as possible. Lord George Murray again advised taking up a position more suited for the Highland charge, or retreating into the hills. But the Prince again rejected his counsel, and instead of seven thousand fresh troops only about five thousand exhausted men assembled on level country to meet Cumberland's veteran force.
To Rob, who looked on the Highland claymore as irresistible, the approaching conflict was none too soon, to others it came as a relief after weeks of waiting and hardship.
Of that ill-omened day everything is known, and little need be said: it was the inevitable conclusion of a forlorn hope.
The English opened fire, and for long enough bullets rained and sang through the sullen Highland ranks. At last Lord George Murray resolved on an advance, but before he could give the order the Mackintoshes, with the heroism that had ever distinguished that clan, charged recklessly, and at that all the regiments on the right moved forward, and the action began in earnest.
An aide-de-camp was dispatched to hurry the advance of the left wing, but he was shot on the way and this unhappy accident prevented the Highland advance concentrating its full shock. It has long been an established belief that the battle was lost largely owing to the defection of the Macdonalds, who refused to advance on a dispute of precedence. It is time that a story without historical foundation should be for ever discredited. The Macdonalds did not receive the command to charge until it was too late, and they found themselves faced by an impassable morass when they moved forward. When the battle was lost and the Prince in flight, they marched from the stricken moor in good order.
The English soldiery meanwhile had awaited the attack with levelled muskets and fixed bayonets, reserving their fire until the Highlanders were almost upon them. At close quarters they raked the close ranks of the clansmen with deadly aim.
The carnage was terrible. Whole ranks of the Highlanders were swept away. But it took more than that to stem that mad and dauntless charge. It broke through Barrel's and Monro's regiments, but farther they could not go, for they received a storm of grapeshot sufficient to decimate their numbers. Had the whole Highland line delivered its shock simultaneously the English army might have recoiled and taken to flight. But the failure of the extreme left to advance at all lessened the frail chance of such a tactic proving decisive, and within a few minutes the Jacobite cause was lost.
Rob, placed on the left wing, weary of waiting and sick at heart by the sight of men falling all about him, unloosed his claymore, and pulling his bonnet down upon his brows, prepared for his regiment to charge. At last they could stand the shattering fire no longer. With a hoarse noise of shouting rising from Gaelic tongues like the roar of a winter sea, they streamed forward in reckless bravery, and foremost of them Rob, running over the heavy ground towards the storm and thunder of the conflict.