Chapter 19
Gladsmuir - Saturday September 21st, 1745
It was late in the day when the Prince’s army halted at Tranent. Lord George Murray issued orders to form into line facing north towards the hamlet of Preston where General Cope’s regiments stood. Between the two armies lay a deep, treacherous mire. Puffs of smoke signified ranging artillery shots from the Hanoverian battery. Cope had two batteries of four two-pounder cannon. Lord George Murray suggested to the MacGregors that now might be a suitable time to try out the toy which they had found at Falkirk.
Newly promoted Major Evan, Robin Oig and Rob removed the horse from its traces and manhandled their falconet so that it pointed towards the Hanoverian lines. Robin Oig broke open one of the powder barrels. He took a handful of powder and examined it thoughtfully.
“Well?” Rob asked, “Do you not intend to load?”
“I am unsure of the charge.” He answered. “I have not served in the artillery, although I have seen the guns being loaded and fired. If this gun fires a one-pound ball, perhaps it should have one pound of powder. This horn cup may hold a pound. Perhaps we should try one half cup to begin with.” So saying he scooped a cup half full of powder and poured it down the barrel.
Evan proffered a piece of rag which Rob pushed down the barrel with their ramrod. Robin Oig rolled the first ball on top of the charge. In a case attached to the limber, they had found some wedges. Robin directed them to use these to raise the barrel to point towards the enemy. Rob looked up, a small crowd of officers had gathered around to watch the fun.
Robin Oig motioned them all to stand clear. A ball from Cope’s artillery splashed harmlessly in the swamp about fifty paces in front of their position. Robin Oig lit his slow match and attached it to a pole. He placed the glowing tip of the match to the touch-hole of their falconet. Nothing happened. He had forgotten the charge in the pan. Handing the slow match to Rob he trickled some powder into the firing hole. Taking the match he tried again. This time, there was a deafening bang and a cloud of smoke. The gun leapt backwards with the recoil, almost striking one of the Cameron officers who barely leapt out of its way in time. They watched intently for their ball to land.
“Short, by fifty paces,” Robin Oig announced in disgust. “Here, Evan you try.”
Once again they loaded the gun. They used a little more powder this time than before. Evan sighted the gun and tapped the wedges to provide more elevation of the muzzle. Motioning their audience to stand further back, he fired their gun for a second time. This time the shot landed only just short of the enemy line. Already Cope’s artillery had injured several of the Highlanders. Rob, looking around, noticed that the Prince himself had joined their audience. Next it was MacPharrie’s turn, but the shot did not carry quite so far. The light was beginning to fade. Soon it would not be possible to continue. Evan invited Rob to take his turn. This time the charge was increased to three quarters of a cup. Rob fired. The ball carried into the front rank of Cope’s infantry. There was a gap in the line. A man was down. The Jacobites cheered at this success.
“Come, lads.” Intervened Lord George Murray. “We have enjoyed the spectacle and you have returned Cope’s compliments. However, there is a real battle to be fought in the morn. I suggest that you should rest and prepare yourselves.”
The Jacobite army bivouacked for part of the night around the village of Tranent. The harvest, though ready, had not been gathered in. Much of it, trampled and spoiled would never be gathered now.
In the early hours of the following morning, Domhnall Dubh MacGregor, servant to Glencarnaig, trudged through the wakeful camp towards the group of men in the far corner of the field. He was well burdened by the weight he carried. As he reached the high, untidy bean-stack around which the fighting men of Clan Gregor were lying, he swung around the heavy pack from off his back. Rob was rising to his feet as the bottle-weighted burden caught him off balance. "Dhia!,” he swore, staggering backward and tripping over James Mòr's outstretched legs. He landed, cushioned by Calum Og and Alasdair Roy, two of his own tail from Stronachlachar. Calum half asleep, woke with a curse, half pushing Rob off before realising who had fallen on him.
"Diabhol!” James Mòr called out. Others in the group rose to their feet.
Domhnall stammered his apologies, laying the heavy pack on the ground.
Glencarnaig spoke out. "Never mind about Rob. Have you broken any of those bottles?"
They all laughed. Rob not one to bear a grudge, joined in.
Domhnall opened the pack and began to hand out bottles of rum recently liberated from a military store at Leith. Rob's indignity was soon forgotten, as the warm dark liquid coursed through his veins.
Glencarnaig ordered three tots to every man in his band. More than two hundred Gregarach gathered around. Nobody seemed quite sure who commanded the regiment. Glengyle was in nominal command, though Glencarnaig’s followers grumbled. Calum of Cornour and his forty followers clustered to one side, did not serve with the Clan Gregor regiment but with the Duke of Perth. Evan, brother to Glencarnaig, had been promoted Major and Aide de Campe to the Prince and would not serve with his kinsmen today. Many of Glengyle's followers had muskets and other army ordnance either from careless soldiers in Stirling or from their capture of the garrison of Inversnaid. In addition they carried a range of personal weaponry of amazing variety and vintage. Glencarnaig's men were less well provided for, and a group of twenty or so had no more than scythe and sickle blades securely lashed to six-foot long pitchfork poles. In formation against charging dragoons these could be vicious weapons, less so against well-equipped infantry. Just now they were stacked in untidy pyramids.
James Mòr stood by the bean-stack, warmed by the velvety rum coursing into his belly. He joked with Rob beside him. "Had you broken those bottles, man, there would have been no stomach for a fight with Cope, but there would have been at least one casualty in the Gregarach this day."
Rob grinned, fear of the day to come gone for now. The remainder of the rum was handed over to Ardshiel's Appin Stewarts nearby. Glengyle ordered his men to rise, silently, the piper was not to play. They had the vanguard through the bog.
When the Jacobites army arrived at Fawside, they found that General Sir John Cope had drawn up their battle lines to the east of the hamlet of Preston. Cope’s right flank was on the coast by Port Seton and their left hard by a ditch and a seeming impenetrable bog. Cope had expected a frontal assault from the direction of Edinburgh. Instead the Prince’s army had occupied Tranent to the south. Cope, therefore, faced his army of 2300 men, including the 13th and 14th squadrons of dragoons to face the Jacobites.
James Mòr and Rob struggled through the mire. In front James Anderson, who had claimed to know a track through the bog, waited patiently. Rob hitched his plaid high, his bare legs had become wet with mud up to his groin. He held his musket and powder horn above his head as he splashed through yet another pool. The trailing branches of willow trees and thorn bushes dragged in his hair. The noxious smell of rotting vegetation, disturbed by many feet hovered all around. Behind him, he could hear quiet cursing. An owl left the tree above silently protesting at the intrusion. The ground was firmer now. Robert Anderson stood beside a chest-high bank alongside a ditch. He pointed across the bank, beyond which was firm ground and, to the left, Cope's camp. On both sides of him, long lines of men, filthy and dishevelled, came out of the bog and lined up in the ditch.
Lord George Murray, as befouled by the struggle through the bog as the rest of them, gave instructions for the deployment of the army. Lord George had run a terrible risk, contrary to all rules, in attempting this move. However, the Prince himself was there, in the ditch. Finally, led by Clan Donald who had been commanded to take their traditional position on the right flank, the Highland army moved forward. The Gregarach crossed the bank and formed up at the edge of the stubble. This field had been harvested some days earlier. This farmer would pay his rent at Martinmas. The Duke of Perth clambered over the
bank. He looked at the day glow in the eastern sky. The ground was wreathed in mist, the bog willows behind looked insubstantial. Ahead, perhaps no more than six hundred yards away, was Cope's army, still invisible in the mist. Clan Donald formed up. Behind them were the Atholl men. They began their steady march down the slope, over the firm farmland towards the shore of the Firth of Forth.
As Perth's men began to move, closely followed by Glengyle's, there was a cry and a musket shot rang out. "We are discovered,” a voice called. Six, or maybe eight red-coated infantrymen, out on early morning patrol had appeared out of the mist and were now desperately running back towards their camp. Muskets were levelled. There was a ragged crackle of fire. Three fell, but the rest ran on, becoming almost invisible in the patchy remains of the mist.
Within a few minutes, Glengyle and his men, three abreast in their battle formation, trotted on across the stubble. To their right, in the second line, were the men of Struan, part of Lord George’s Atholl Brigade. Ahead was the Duke of Perth with Cornour's band of Gregarach. Behind came the Appin Stewarts, part of their own division.
The mist was clearing rapidly. Cope's camp could now be seen. His battalions had little semblance of formation as they wheeled on the field. His officers were desperately trying to form ranks to face the unexpected threat from the east. Cope's battery of light cannon had been pointing in the wrong direction. The gunners were manhandling the cannon round. Smoke belched, a two-pounder cannonball whistled harmlessly over Rob's head. He ducked and turned, looking into the rising sun, as two Robertsons in the second line fell.
Lord George shouted a command to charge. They turned left to face west with the rising sun behind them. They threw off their plaids, wearing only their linen shirts. Glengyle yelled "Ard Choille!" - a drawn out, blood-curdling scream. Rob yelled too. His men were about him. Bare feet pounded the stubble, Rob's broadsword, still in its scabbard almost entangled his feet. He stumbled, but continued his run. He gripped a Brown Bess musket with both hands. His pistols, in their armpit holsters, thumped against his chest. His dirk beat time against one thigh, his sword against the other. His breath came in ragged gasps. "Ard Choille!" Another cannonball whistled harmlessly overhead, but a third found its target amongst the Clan Cameron men on the left.
They stopped, briefly, with muskets raised. The ragged volley from fifty paces made a deafening sound. The line of redcoats disappeared from view in the dense smoke of the volley. There was a brief lull. He flung down his muskets and drew his pistols, one in each hand, He could hear screams from in front. The sound of another thunderous volley came from his left as the Appin Stewarts let fly. As the smoke briefly cleared Rob could see the company of dragoons at the southern end of Cope's line had broken their formation, throwing the infantry regiment beside them out of order. Instead of charging the Highlanders, they turned and galloped from the line, crashing through the artillery in their panic, upending the cannon, and causing the gunners to take to their heels.
Rob ran forward again, pistols in hand, peering through the smoke towards the front line of the regiment ahead. It was no more than twelve paces now. Directly in front, Rob saw a red-coated infantryman. He was a tall man with a full beard, sergeant's stripes on his arm, white webbing across his chest, shako on his head and sword in his right hand raised high in the air. The men alongside had raised their muskets to fire. Rob fired first, missed the sergeant but a man in the second rank went down, Rob fired his other pistol. The sergeant clutched his forehead and fell backwards. His sword did not give the signal. Some of his men fired, but most survivors of the hail of pistol ball ran, causing confusion in the second rank.
Rob flung his pistol at the bearded blue-eyed redcoat ahead. The heavy pistol struck him in the mouth. The redcoat dropped his musket, butt first, its evil bayonet glinting in the rising sun. Broadsword raised high, targe on his left arm taking the force of another bayonet thrust, Rob leapt into the scarlet line. Calum Og just behind at his left shoulder and Alasdair Roy at his right. "Ard Choille!" the slogan was on his lips again and in his ears. The Gregarach slashed and cut through the infantrymen of the unfortunate and under-strength 6th Regiment of foot.
Rob paused. There was nobody left standing in front of him. He had cut his way right through the Hanoverian battle line. He looked back. There was no longer a Hanoverian battle line. Redcoated figures were running towards Preston village, following the dragoons, along a high wall just a few dozen paces behind the line. He could see the group of officers gesticulating from horseback, on the low rise some hundred paces ahead and beyond the wall. Mounted dragoons galloped furiously, away from the battle. Rob looked backwards again. Most of the regiment that Glengyle's men had attacked had either either fallen or run. Only a few isolated knots remained locked in combat.
To the right of the Gregarach there was a gap in the Highland line. Most of the Duke of Perth's men had failed to join the action. The unengaged, 580 strong, Lascelles regiment, the 47th of foot, now began to wheel, in order to take Glengyle's men in the flank. Desperately outnumbered by three to one, the men of Clan Gregor turned to face this new threat.
Rob heard James Mòr shouting above the din, waving at the Clan Donald formation on the right to close up. James Mòr fell. Rob tried to reach him. He saw the broad back of a redcoated infantryman with his right arm raised high; the hand around the butt of his musket; his left hand, lower, grasping the barrel from above. The redcoat was about to thrust the long bayonet at the musket's end into the chest of a Highlander who lay, helplessly, looking upwards. All around was noise, pistol detonations and screams of the injured. The battle-mad yelled their valiant slogans. Rob lifted his blade over his head and brought it down viciously on the redcoat’s unprotected back. Deeply the blade bit, severing the right arm at the shoulder joint. The man dropped. Rob leapt over his body, ignoring the Highlander he had saved. Another Highlander stepped back to make way for Rob as he pushed through the line towards where James Mòr had fallen.
Several of Glengyle's men had gathered around James Mòr, attempting to protect him from the surge of the red-coated line. Desperately they fought. The great scythes rose and dipped. Bodies lay underfoot. Bloody limbs lay about. Rob heard a great shout. “Ard Choille!” Calum Cornour and his men had left the Duke of Perth’s battalion, many of whose men continued to stand like oxen. Calum's band of forty crashed into the redcoats, slashing. Their scythe blades on the wooden shafts of pitchforks mowed men down like grass. Now Calum went down, close by. His men hesitated. Rob heard him order his men on, "I am not dead,” he cried, "By God I shall see if any of you does not do his duty."
Rob saw Duncan, brother of Glencarnaig, fall.
After what seemed an eternity of impossible odds, the nearest company of the Clan Donald men joined in onto the assault on Lascelles regiment. Their own opponents, Murray's 44th regiment, had broken. Clan Donald cheered, slashed and thrusted. The battle had lasted six minutes. It was too much for the crumbling redcoats. They ran.
Rob looked at James Mòr, lying prostrate on the field, though he was clearly alive. Rob could not see any obvious hurt. "What ails thee, man, have you a scratch?"
James Mòr grinned up at him. "That's the spirit. I am shot through the thigh. Go you and finish them off,” he said, waving at the scene in front of them, Cope's men were no longer a disciplined army.
Rob gathered his men along with James Mòr's. He waved his broadsword in the air. They gave a great shout - "Ard Choille!" - yet again, as they launched into a furious charge at the scattering remnants of Johnny Cope’s army.
They pounded along, a long ragged line of men, Clan Donald, Gregarach, Appin Stewarts with Lochiel's Clan Cameron on the left. Isolated groups of redcoated infantry, desperately rallied by their officers, went down before the fury of the charge. Dragoons could be seen in the distance, riding like furies away from the battlefield.
Rob’s breath was coming in short bursts, the pain of a stitch in his side. Calum Og and Alasdair Roy wer
e still there, protecting him, on either side. Ahead there was a fleeing dragoon who had lost his horse. Rob raised his broadsword and brought it slashing down on the dragoon's shoulder. It landed awkwardly, more the flat of his sword than the keen blade. The dragoon staggered and fell, not badly hurt, but wisely remained where had fallen as the Highland army rushed by, drunk on victory.
Rob pounded on. A musket ball whistled by his head. It stung his ear lobe in its passage.
Another man was ahead, an officer, gold braid glistening, tricorn hat gone, wig askew. Rob slashed. The officer parried with his lightweight sword but stumbled. Calum Og brought his broadsword down across his neck - that one would fight no more.
On they ran. They passed overturned wagons and rider-less horses. Red-coated bodies lay everywhere. In the distance a mass of fugitives flooded the cart track to Edinburgh, desperately seeking safety.
Now Rob could see individuals, groups, even whole formations, standing sullen. They had cast down their weapons cast down and stood with arms raised. The pursuit was lessening. Most of Cope's infantry had surrendered or died. Several companies of Highland militia in government service who had been left, contemptuously by the English officers, to guard the baggage train at Cockenzie, stood silently in surrender. They had not been engaged in the battle, but saw no honour in flight.
Rob and the rest of the Gregarach trudged back to the battlefield. They were tired after their breathless charge and pursuit, but elated at the apparently easy success against the English regiments. Rob recalled his anxiety about having to face a modern disciplined force. Their success had been stunning, exhilarating. It was more than just Rob whose limbs trembled now in the aftermath of victory.
The prisoners, more than a thousand of them, were seated on the ground in small groups, guarded by Highlanders. Stretcher parties trotted this way and that gathering up the wounded. Cope's command headquarters became a makeshift field hospital. The military surgeons stitched great wounds. Sawn off limbs lay beside their tables. Heaps of bloody remains piled behind them. Flies congregated. Some of the Highlanders, urged on by their officers, busied themselves, binding up the wounds they had inflicted; fetching water for the dying; supervising the burial of the dead. Prisoners were detailed to dig mass graves into which the three hundred English dead were laid, with due and proper respect.
Most of the Jacobite Army had broken up into groups of men ranging around the field, arming themselves with captured equipment, ransacking Cope's baggage wagons, drinking, or fornicating with camp followers in corners of the open field. Camp followers, soldiers’ wives or Edinburgh whores, as well as local villagers wandered around the field, stripping the bodies of clothing and personal possessions. Here and there a wife was seen crying over her husband's body, but most, with little sentiment, took what they could and would soon find a replacement. Dogs scampered about, some carrying bloody limbs in their mouths, furtively seeking a quiet corner. Ravens clustered and called raucously, diving down to grab what they could and taking flight back into the bog with their booty.
When the contingents of the MacGregor regiment were called to muster, it became apparent that they had suffered just one death, despite the ferocity of the fighting. James Mòr had been shot through the thigh. Calum Cornour was lightly injured. Craigruidhe was grievously hurt, with five wounds - perhaps fatally hurt. Captain Duncan, Glencarnaig's brother, was slightly wounded, as were twenty-one others of the Gregarach, a few serious but most could still walk. With the permission of the army commanders, they took carts from Cope's baggage train and draught horses to carry the injured home, together with their plunder. Many of the regiment wanted to go home now and Glencarnaig and Glengyle, along with the other commanders, would face considerable difficulty in keeping their men with them.
The Prince, attired in his kilt and surrounded by jubilant staff officers, approached Glencarnaig and Glengyle. He saluted them, "Mon Brave, c'est magnifique.” He took them each in turn in his arms and kissed them, on both cheeks. "Major Evan,” he called to Glencarnaig's brother, his new ADC, "summon the brave men of Clan Gregor."
The Jacobite quartermasters had plundered Cope's personal baggage wagon. A feast was spread out on makeshift tables. The smell of battle and death had not yet cleared. Clan Gregor stood honour guard, as their officers, Rob included, dined with the Prince. Cope’s wine flowed.
A company of MacKays, poorly accoutred and unhappy were paraded nearby. The dark green and muted blues of their kilts contrasted with the scarlet of their coats. Their commander, the young Master of Reay, stood sullen. Lord Loudoun had promised him glory, not miserable defeat like this. Cope had treated him and his men with contempt and had left them to guard the baggage. Rob's men now guarded them. The initial tension had evaporated. The men chatted to each other in Gaelic. Rob had visited Sutherland some years earlier to collect cattle for the Crieff tryst. He recognised one of the ensigns as a tacksman of Strathnaver from whom he had purchased beasts. The sun was well into west as Lord George Murray approached.
"Sir,” Lord George began, addressing the Master of Reay and his men. "Men of Duthaich mhic Aoidh, will you not join our glorious cause? You are Highlanders just like ourselves. Why do you support a cruel tyranny, careless of your country and honour?"
The Master of Reay responded. "Sir, I thank thee for the quarter given to us this day. I regret that I must decline to accept your offer. Our happy constitution of Church and State, our Laws and Presbyterian doctrine, indeed our very honour demands that we oppose your Papish tyranny."
Lord George considered this briefly and then turned to address the fencible men of the Reay country. "Very well, I respect your principles. I require your pledge to renounce any further part in this conflict. I require that each one of you pledge your word that you shall not, again, take up arms against the Prince and that you will return to your homes there to remain till this venture is done."
The Master of Reay answered, "Sir, you have us at your advantage.We will give you this pledge and return to our homes."
Despite these words, some of the MacKays did volunteer to join the Prince's army. The others, after having been fed from what remained of Cope's commissary were sent trudging off the field on their long trek home.
That night, around the campfires, the tension of the previous evening had gone. The wine flowed. They could conquer the earth. Many of the Highlanders intended to go back to their homes in the morning with their booty.
Rob, attempting to clear his throbbing head, wandered from campfire to campfire. Calum Og was, as ever, at his side. They came to a group singing, uproariously. Rob recognised Robert Anderson, their guide of the morning. Beside him stood a fiddler, composing the words of a Lowland ballad, to the great enjoyment of his listeners.
"Cope sent a letter frae Dunbar: -
Charlie, meet me an ye daur,
And I'll learn ye the art o' waur,
If you'll meet me in the morning.
They all joined in on the rip-roaring chorus. Rob found his feet tapping as he picked up the unfamiliar doric of these Lothian farmers.
Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye wauking yet?
Or are your drums a-beating yet?
If ye were wauking, I wad wait
Tae gang tae the coals i' the morning.
On went the minstrel, raising great gales of laughter among his audience.
When Charlie look'd the letter upon,
he drew his sword the scabbard from;
Come follow me, my merry men,
And we'll meet Johnnie Cope i' the Morning.
Now, Johnnie, be as good's your word:
Come let us try both fire and sword;
And dinna flee awa' like a frighted bird,
That's chased frae its nest i' the morning.
When Johnnie Cope he heard o' this,
He thocht it wadna be amiss,
Tae hae a horse in readiness
Tae flee awa' i' the morning.
Fy noo, Johnnie, get up an' rin,
The Highland bagpipes mak' a din;
It's best tae sleep in a hale skin,
For 'twil be a bluidy morning.
When Johnnie Cope to Dunbar came,
They speir'd at him, Whaur's a' your men?
The de'il confound me gin I ken,
For I left them a' i' the morning.
Now Johnnie, troth ye werna blate
To come wi' the news o' your ain defeat,
And leave your men in sic a strait
Sae early i' the morning.
O! faith, quo' Johnnie, I got sic flegs
Wi' their claymores and philabegs;
If I face them again, de'il brak my legs-
So I wish ye a' guid morning.