The regiment had one serjeant and seventeen rank and file killed; Lieutenants Cramer, Forrest, Mure, Courtenay, and Hargraves, Ensigns Donallen and Stacey, two serjeants, and fifty-three rank and file wounded; one serjeant and twenty-seven rank and file missing.
The regiment was afterwards encamped on the plains of Lessines; and was subsequently employed in operations of a defensive character; but the enemy had so great a superiority of numbers, that it was found impossible to prevent the loss of several fortified towns.
In the mean time, Charles Edward, eldest son of the Pretender, had arrived in Scotland, and being joined by the Highland clans, he resolved to make a desperate effort to overthrow the existing government. The Thirty-fourth regiment was ordered to return to England on this occasion; it left the camp at Vilvorde on the 13th of September, embarked at Williamstadt, on the 19th, and arriving in the river Thames on the 23rd, landed at Blackwall, from whence it was ordered to proceed to Newcastle, where a body of troops was assembling under Field-Marshal Wade. Having joined this force, the regiment was formed in brigade with the Buffs, the Thirteenth, and Forty-eighth Regiments, and when the clans penetrated England, it marched by Durham, Darlington, and Richmond, in order to cover Yorkshire, and eventually proceeded to Ferrybridge, where it arrived on the 8th of December. When the Highlanders quitted Derby, and made a precipitate retreat to Scotland, the regiment was engaged in the attempt to intercept their return; but the clans escaped with the loss of a few men killed in a skirmish on Clifton moor.
1746
Early in January, 1746, the regiment marched to Edinburgh, from whence it advanced, with the troops under Lieutenant-General Hawley, to Falkirk, for the purpose of forcing the insurgents to raise the siege of Stirling castle.
The clans quitted Stirling, and on the 17th of January, they advanced to Falkirk moor; when the King’s troops marched to attack the insurgents. As the royal army diverged upon the moor, a storm was seen approaching, and as the soldiers moved forward to commence the battle, a violent hurricane, with a heavy shower of rain, beat violently in their faces, and nearly blinded them; at the same time, it beat on the backs of the Highlanders and caused them little annoyance. The engagement commenced under great disadvantages to the King’s troops, who could not see to take aim; more than half the muskets would not give fire, and the powder became wet and useless while the men were in the act of loading.
Being thus blinded and confounded by the storm, several regiments faced about and retreated. Others stood firm and repulsed the clans; but during the night the whole retired. The regiment lost its commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Powell, who was mortally wounded on this occasion. Its colonel, Brigadier-General the Honorable James Cholmondeley, highly distinguished himself.
The troops in Scotland were reinforced: his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland assumed the command, and on the 31st of January they again advanced; when the Pretender raised the siege of Stirling castle, and made a precipitate retreat. The Thirty-fourth were engaged in the pursuit of the clans to Perth, where the army halted in consequence of the severe weather, until the 20th of February, when the march was resumed, and in the beginning of the following month the army arrived at Aberdeen, where its progress was retarded by heavy rains and snow storms. In the early part of April, the King’s troops were again in motion towards Inverness, and on the 16th of that month, they discovered the clans in order of battle on Culloden moor, when they formed line opposite the hostile ranks; the Thirty-fourth, or Cholmondeley’s[9], five hundred men, being in the right wing of the front line, and on the left of the second battalion of the Royal regiment.
The action commenced between twelve and one o’clock, and in less than one hour the rebel army was overpowered and chased from the moor with great slaughter. This victory was decisive, and it instantly transformed the young Pretender from an imaginary monarch to a humble fugitive; an interval of hardship and suffering followed, and after wandering for some time in disguise, among the isles and mountains, he escaped to France.