There seems to have been an excellent project formed in the Prince’s Council, by Lord George Murray, to make a night attack upon Cumberland, which would have stood a good chance of success as the 15th April, being the Duke’s birthday, his soldiers had spent it in drink and carousing, supplies being plentiful, as a fleet laden with provisions followed them along the coast.
The night march, however, from a proper want of direction, proved a lamentable failure, and only served to further exhaust the half-starved Highlanders, who returned worn out, to Drummossie or Culloden Moor.
There, on the 16th, with the ration of one biscuit per man, they stood up to meet the well-fed, well-equipped army of Cumberland twice their number. The result is not to be wondered at.
Their ranks, ploughed by the superior artillery of the English, with a storm of snow and hail blowing full in their faces, the starved Highland men endured their position without a murmur, until the order was given by Lord George Murray to charge.
The Clan of the Macdonalds refused the order; but the right and centre in one wild rush, swept down on Cumberland’s men and broke through the first line, capturing two guns.
But there were two lines beyond, and these closing up, and standing three deep, poured such a volley into the Highlanders that their charge was shattered by it. That ended the matter; the Prince’s army, which had never before suffered defeat, broke and fled.
Had the Macdonalds taken part in the charge, the battle might have ended differently; but after one volley, they remained spectators of the action, sulking because they were not placed on the right wing.
No sooner was the charge of the Highlanders broken than the English regiments closed in upon them with the bayonet. Cumberland had with some skill, instructed his men not to use their bayonets on the adversaries immediately in front of them in a melée, who were protected by their small shields, but to stab sideways at the assailants of their right hand men; what was to become of the unfortunate man on the extreme left of the line apparently was not stated in the Duke’s order. Against the solid press of the well-fed English soldiers, at least two to one, the broken half-starved Highlanders could make no way, and for the first time in the whole campaign fell back before them; the Macdonalds on the left wing being the only part of the line which retreated in anything like order. So far the battle had been fairly fought, and the Scots fairly beaten; had the Duke of Cumberland treated them with the ordinary humanity of civilized war, even as civilized war was understood in those brutal days, not one word would have been said against him, and he might have handed a clean name down to posterity. As it was, he preferred to give full play to the most brutal instincts that a man was ever cursed with.
The chief charge against the Duke of Cumberland, and the charge is fully substantiated by undeniable testimony—is that in cold blood he ordered the enemy’s wounded to be butchered.
Nay that a barn into which twenty poor wounded Highland men had crept was deliberately set on fire, adding to the agony of their wounds the intolerable pain of death by fire.