There is no need for me to repeat the story told once for all by Lord Macaulay, of that romantic action; but it is worth while to glance at some few of its peculiarities. Mackay's force consisted of five battalions—the three Scottish regiments already mentioned, Hastings', now the Thirteenth Light Infantry, and the newly raised Twenty-fifth, together with two troops of horse. Of these the Scottish battalions, trained in the Dutch School by competent officers, should unquestionably have been the most efficient; yet all three of them broke before the charge of the Highlanders, threw down their arms, and would not be rallied. The two troops of horse took to their heels and disappeared; the Twenty-fifth broke like the other Scottish regiments, as was pardonable in such young soldiers, though they made some effort to rally. The only regiment that stood firm was the Thirteenth, which kept up a murderous fire to the end, and retired with perfect coolness and good order. Yet this was their first action, and Hastings, their colonel, was one of the most unscrupulous scoundrels, even in those days of universal robbery, that ever robbed a regiment.[231] Thus the troops which should have done best did worst, and those that might have been expected to do worst did best; and the moral would seem to be that inexperienced troops are sometimes safer than troops trained in civilised warfare for the rough-and-ready fighting of a savage campaign.
A still more curious example of the same peculiarity was seen before the close of the war. At the end of the first stage of Mackay's campaign it was found necessary to raise fresh troops; and it was hoped that the Covenanters of Western Scotland, who of all men had most reason to detest bloody Claverhouse, might be willing to furnish recruits. But the Covenanters had scruples about joining the army of King William, wherein they might be set shoulder to shoulder with the immoral and, even worse, with the unorthodox. Even Mackay, a man of extreme piety,[232] was suspected by them. They held a tumultuous meeting, wherein the majority, little knowing probably how terribly true their words then were of the British Army, declared that military service was a sinful association. Nevertheless there was still a minority from which the Earl of Angus formed a body of infantry, twelve hundred strong, which, though now numbered Twenty-sixth of the Line, is still best known by its first name of the Cameronians. Their ideas of military organisation were peculiar. They desired that each company should furnish an elder, who with the chaplain should constitute a court for the suppression of immorality and heresy; and though the elders were never appointed, and the officers bore the usual titles of captain, lieutenant, and ensign, yet the chaplain, a noted hill-preacher, supplied in his own person fanaticism for all. So in spite of the ravings of the majority a true Puritan regiment once more donned the red coat, under the youngest colonel—for Angus was no more than eighteen—that had led such men since Henry Cromwell.
August 21.
Within four months they were engaged against four times their number of Highlanders at Dunkeld. They were still imperfectly disciplined, still somewhat of a congregation that preferred elders to officers. They would not be satisfied that their mounted officers would not gallop away, until the lieutenant-colonel and major offered to shoot their horses before their eyes. Then they braced themselves, and fought such a fight as has seldom fallen to the lot of a regiment of recruits. The battle was fought amid the roar of a burning town. Angus was not present—short though his time was to be, it was not yet come—and his place was taken by Lieutenant-Colonel Cleland. The action was hardly opened before Cleland fell dead. The major stepped forward to his place, and a minute after was pierced by three mortal wounds. The men too fell fast; the musketry crackled round them, and the flames roared behind them; but still they fought on. Ammunition failed them at last; everything conspired to make the trial too hard for a young regiment to endure; but nothing could break the spirit of these men. At last, after four long hours, the Highlanders rolled back in disorder. The Cameronians had won their first battle and ended the Highland war.
But that war brought something more to the British Army even than two famous Scottish regiments. For Mackay had noticed that at Killiecrankie his Scotsmen had not had time to fix the clumsy plug-bayonets into the muzzles of their muskets, and had consequently been unable to meet the Highland charge. He therefore ordered bayonets to be made so that they could be screwed on to the outside of the barrel, thus enabling the men to fire with bayonets fixed. So finally was accomplished the blending of pike and musket into a single weapon, a great era in the history of the art of war.[233]
But while recruiting officers were beating their drums through the market towns of England, and Mackay was toiling in pursuit of the Highlanders, Protestant Ireland was standing desperately at bay against King James at Londonderry and Enniskillen. There is no need for me to recall the triumph of the unconquerable defenders of Derry; and it would be pleasanter, were it possible, to pass over the somewhat discreditable behaviour of the Army in relation to their relief. Five days, indeed, before the city was invested two English regiments, the Ninth and Seventeenth Foot, had arrived in the bay, but had been persuaded by the treacherous governor, Lundy, to return and to leave Derry to its fate. Colonels Cunningham and Richards, who commanded these corps, were both of them superseded on their arrival in England; but no further help came until on the 15th of June General Kirke sailed into Lough Foyle with the Second, Ninth, and Eleventh Foot. Even then he would not stir for six whole weeks, when he received positive orders from home to relieve the city.
July 31.
Meanwhile all operations of the Irish Protestants that were not wholly defensive were directed from Enniskillen, which was filled with refugees from Munster and Connaught. With extraordinary energy these Protestants organised a body of horse and another of foot, with which they kept up an incessant harassing warfare against the insurgent Irish. On Kirke's arrival they applied to him for reinforcements. These he refused to give; but he sent them arms and he sent them officers, one of whom, Colonel Wolseley, equalled at Newtown Butler Dundee's feat of Killiecrankie, of beating trained soldiers with raw but enthusiastic levies. After this action the force of the Enniskilleners was reorganised into two regiments of dragoons and three of foot, which are represented among us to this day by the Fifth Royal Irish Dragoons, now Lancers, the Sixth Enniskillen Dragoons, and the Twenty-seventh Enniskillen regiment of the infantry of Line.
The time was now come when the great English expedition for the reconquest of Ireland should set sail. The untrained Irish Protestant had played his part gallantly, and it was the turn of the English soldier. For months great preparations had been going forward; the new regiments had been raised; and on paper at any rate there were not only horse, foot, and dragoons, but a respectable train of artillery and of transport. Moreover, the failure of Cunningham and Richards had led Parliament to inquire into the conduct of that expedition; and it had been discovered that the supply of transport-ships had been so insufficient that the men had not had space even to lie down, while the biscuit provided for them had been mouldy and uneatable, and the beer so foul and putrid that they preferred to drink salt water. These shortcomings had occurred in the dispatch of a couple of battalions only; it remained to be seen how the military departments could cope with the transport and maintenance of an entire army. The total force to be employed in Ireland was close on nineteen thousand men, of which about one-fourth was already on the spot.
August 13.