Viscount Dundee

by Louis A. Barbé

Before deciding to leave Blair, Dundee had called together a council of war composed of all the leading men who had joined him. The question to be discussed was, whether it was wiser to remain encamped until the arrival of all the Highland contingents, or to march forward at once to meet Mackay. The old officers, who were accustomed to the command of regular troops, favoured the former alternative, and urged that it would be imprudent to risk an engagement against an army which exceeded theirs by more than half, and was composed of trained soldiers, whilst their own forces consisted of raw, undisciplined men, who had never seen blood, whose strength was impaired by the sufferings and privations of a long march, and whose spirit was damped by disappointments.

Glengarry, on the other hand, represented that, although the clansmen’s endurance had been taxed by want of provisions as well as by fatigue, they were but little affected by hardships to which their own way of living inured them; and that, in spite of what they had gone through, they were both able and ready to fight an equal number of the enemy’s best troops, and had a fair chance of beating them. Still, even he did not recommend a general engagement before the arrival of the remaining claymores had brought their numbers more nearly to an equality with those of their opponents. His advice, which met with the approval of most of the chieftains, was that they should keep the army constantly in sight of the enemy, and should post their men on strong ground, where they would be safe from attack themselves, and whence they could easily sally forth, at every available opportunity, to harass the foe.

Alone of those present, Lochiel had refrained from giving any sign of adherence to the views of either party; and Dundee noticing this, called upon him, in terms most flattering to the old chief, to declare his opinion. It was given without hesitation: To fight the enemy. As he supported this advice by pointing to the eagerness of the men, and by enumerating the disadvantages of a delay, it was observed that Dundee’s countenance brightened, and that he listened with obvious satisfaction to his spirited yet wise words. When his turn came to speak, he told the Council that his sentiments had just been expressed by one who added to them the weight of long experience and of intimate knowledge, and that his voice, like that of Lochiel, was for immediate and decisive action, a course which was consequently resolved upon.

Before the Council broke up, the venerable chieftain again rose to speak. He had promised, he said, and would yield implicit obedience to all Dundee’s orders; but he requested that, before they separated, he might be allowed to give one command, not in his own name, but in that of the whole Council. It was the unanimous wish of all present that Dundee should not engage personally, for on him depended the fate, not only of their brave little army, but also of their king and of their country. ‘If your Lordship deny us this reasonable demand,’ he added, ‘for my own part I declare that neither I, nor any I am concerned in, shall draw a sword on this important occasion, whatever construction shall be put on the matter.’ In his reply to this appeal, Dundee admitted that, if he fell, his death might be a loss to them; but he reminded his hearers of the temper of their men. If the least reason were given them to doubt the personal courage of their leader, they would lose their respect for him, and give him, at best, but grudging obedience. For this reason, he begged to be permitted to give one ‘shear-darg’—that is, one harvest day’s work—to the King, his master, that he might have an opportunity of convincing the brave clans that he could hazard his life in that service, as freely as the meanest of them. If this were granted him he pledged his word never again to risk his person, so long as he had the honour of commanding them. Finding him inflexible in the chivalrous resolution which he had couched as a request, the Council reluctantly yielded.

On the morning of the 27th of July, Mackay left his quarters in Dunkeld. By ten o’clock he had reached the southern extremity of the Pass of Killiecrankie, where he halted for two hours. At noon he again gave the order to advance. The Pass into which he led his army consisted of an almost straight road, fully two miles in length, and so narrow that barely half a dozen men could march abreast. To the right it was flanked by lofty mountains. The precipitous banks of the Garry skirted it on the left; and, on the other side of the river, a thickly wooded mountain hemmed in the landscape. Through this wild and rugged defile Balfour, Ramsay and Kenmore opened the march with their three battalions. Then came Belhaven’s troop of horse, followed by Leven’s regiment, and a battalion of the General’s. Over twelve hundred baggage horses formed a long line behind them, protected by a rear-guard which consisted of the Earl of Annandale’s troop of horse and Hastings’s regiment.

Impressed by the wildness of the surroundings, and conscious of the danger to which it would be exposed in the event of an attack, the army moved cautiously but cumbrously on. As it advanced without discovering any sign of the presence of the enemy, his neglect to avail himself of the obvious advantages which the nature of the ground offered him, inspired a new fear. Some carefully prepared trap at the further end seemed to afford the only intelligible explanation of his action in leaving the pass free. Even Mackay himself did not realise that the only stratagem which Dundee had devised was an engagement that should not merely retard, but wholly scatter his opponent’s forces.

At length, the open ground on the bank of the Garry was reached. As his men debouched into it, Mackay drew them up three deep, without changing the relative position of the regiments. The extreme left was thus held by Balfour. Ramsay and Kenmore came next, and were posted between him and two troops of horse that occupied the centre. Leven, Mackay and Hastings were on the right. Some short, portable leather cannon, that could hardly be dignified with the name of artillery were placed behind the horse. The whole line faced towards Blair, from which the enemy was expected to move forward. And, indeed, before long, the General perceived what he thought was the advance guard, coming down the valley towards him. It was in reality but a small detachment that had been sent on for the purpose of attracting his attention. Dundee, with his main body had wound his way round to the left, and his Highlanders were soon seen taking up their position on some elevated ground that commanded Mackay’s right wing. Without altering the disposition of his line of battle, the General wheeled it round to face the clansmen, a movement by which he put the river and the steep ridge above it immediately in his rear, and rendered his own position far more precarious in the event of a defeat, whilst the rise of the ground towards the hills in his front prevented him from attacking the enemy except under obviously disadvantageous conditions.

In the meantime, Dundee was making his own dispositions for the coming fight. Acting under the advice of Lochiel, who knew the spirit of emulation by which the several clans were animated, he drew them up in such a way that each of them should have a regiment in Mackay’s line assigned to it The Macleans, under their youthful chief, were posted on the extreme right. The Irish contingent, commanded by Colonel Pearson occupied the next position, and had the Tutor of Clanranald with his battalion on their immediate left. A fourth battalion, composed of the men whom the stalwart Glengarry led to battle, made up the right wing. The left consisted of two others, of which Lochiel’s was one, and Sir Donald Macdonald’s the other. The only cavalry at Dundee’s disposal consisted of a few Lowland gentlemen and some remains of his old troop, not exceeding forty horse in all, and these ‘very lean and ill-kept.’ It was posted in the centre, to face Mackay’s hundred sabres. It should have been under the orders of the Earl of Dunfermline; but that very morning, Sir William Wallace, a gentleman who had come over from Ireland, produced a commission which appointed him to the command hitherto held by the Earl. Though deeply mortified Dunfermline had submitted without demur to the unjust and ill-advised supersession, for which Melfort, Wallace’s brother-in-law, was probably responsible. His loyalty to the cause which he served prevented him from raising a dispute at so critical a time.

For two hours the armies stood facing each other, within musket-shot, without engaging, though some desultory skirmishing appears to have been going on towards the left, between some Macleans and the regiment opposed to them, whilst the guns in Mackay’s centre kept up an intermittent and harmless fire. During this long pause before the battle both leaders addressed their troop. In spite of his superiority in numbers, Mackay did not hide from his men that the task before them was no easy one. In encouraging them to it, he pointed out that, in such a place and with such foemen, they could not hope for safety in flight, but must win it for themselves by the defeat of the enemy. His words were greeted with a cheer, which to Lochiel who heard it, seemed wanting in enthusiasm, and from which he drew for his own followers an omen of victory.

In Dundee’s allocution there was a spirited appeal to the loyalty and patriotism of the clansmen. He urged them to behave like true Scotsmen, in defence of their King, their Religion, and their Country. He asked nothing of them but what they should see him do before them. For those who fell, there would be the comfort and the honour of having died in the performance of their duty, and as became true men of valour and of conscience; and to those who lived and won the battle, he promised a reward of a gracious King, and the praise of all good men.