General Wolfe at the Battle of Culloden (1746)

General James Wolfe

Another story - it seems to be anonymous - collected by Alexander Carmichael concerns the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden representing the last gasp of the Jacobites to regain the British Crown for the deposed Stuart royal family:

A gentleman of the name of
Macleod and his three sons from
Glenelg fell at the battle of Culloden.
Although severely wound[ed]
the father was not yet dead. As Cumberland
and his staff were passing Mac-
leod slightly moved his head to look
at them. “Shoot that damed bugar [sic]
looking at me” said Cumberland
to an officer beside him. My com-
mission is at the disposal of your
Royal Highness but I decline
to become a butcher replied the
officer. Without noticing
heeding the remark Cumberland ordered
a soldier near him to shoot
that damned bugar [sic] The soldier
said that all his lead was done up
Take the stock of your
gun cowardly bugar [sic]
and smash his brains
said Cumberland and thus sternly addressed
the soldier battered the head and brains
of Macleod breaking his gun
in the process. That is brutal work
observed General Archibald Campbell.
I wish every damned bug[ar] [sic] in
your barbarous country were served
the same way said Cumberland.
Its is a pity that your Royal
Highness and did not utter that
wish yesterday said Lord Archibald
Campbell – things might have
been different today.


The officer who declined to shoot
Macleod was Wolfe who fell at the
battle of Quebec when the Highlanders showed
prodigous valour and con-
quered Canada to the British crown.

James Wolfe was a Kentish lad who enlisted at the tender age of fourteen into the regular British army. His dedication and talent soon saw him rise through the ranks and as the result of the battle of Dettingen in Barvaria in 1743 he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1744 he was appointed captain in the 4th Foot and in 1745 he returned to England with the army withdrawn to deal with Prince Charles Edward’s invasion. In January 1746 he was present at the Hanoverian defeat at Falkirk (which inspired Duncan Ban Macintyre to compose his famous song). He was shortly afterwards made aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Henry Hawley. In this capacity he took part in the battle of Culloden (16 April 1746), and may or may not have refused to obey an order from William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, to shoot a wounded Highlander. Wolfe died due to fatal wounds received at the battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759) and is now chiefly remembered for his defeat of the French allowing the British to take control over maritime Canada. It would seem that this tradition concerning Wolfe’s role at the battle of Culloden is an apocryphal one, for the general famously later wrote: “I should imagine that two or three independent Highland companies might be of use; they are hardy, intrepid, accustomed to a rough country, and no great mischief if they fall. How better can you employ a secret enemy than by making his end conducive to the common good?” It is said that what caused Wolfe’s rather acerbic and back-handed compliment was that he became furious because the Highlanders insisted on carrying their wounded from the field when ordered to retreat. Something that many of them never had the opportunity to do on the bloody field of Culloden a dozen years previously.

References:
CW 3, fos. 46r, 47r.
Image: General James Wolfe (1727–1759).

The Appin Banner: Donald Molach Livingstone the Standard Bearer

The impact of the Battle of Culloden, the last major battle to have been fought on British soil in 1746, will be forever imprinted upon the psyche of the Highlands. Alexander Carmichael lived and was actively collecting at only around two or three generations remove from those who had either fought at the battle or who had lived through the experience of post-Culloden society which saw a sea change throughout the Highlands and Islands. And, of course, though many would have been reticent about mentioning anything about Culloden and its aftermath, stories of heroism, heart-rending songs or stirring pipe tunes would and, in some ways, had to be remembered to commemorate the last and bloodiest of the many battles that were to see the Jacobite Rising of the ’45 eventually flounder and fail. On that fateful day, the Livingstones followed the Stewarts of Appin, and accompanied them at the Battle of Culloden, where Donald Livingstone saved the banner of the Stewarts, and conveyed it back to Appin. The family of Livingstones were Barons of the Bachull and received grants of lands in Lismore as keepers of the crozier or baculum of the Bishops of Lismore, known in Gaelic as the Bachull Mòr:

John Livingstone son of h Ach
na crei went to Morven his son Donald
fo[ugh]t at Culloden aged
18. Nine Donald[s] were shot
down carrying the Bratach of the
Prince when Don[ald] Livingstone
took it up and swathed round
his body. He was shot down and
was thought to be dead but he got up
with nine bullet wounds –
fresh wounds which were seen
in his body when he died aged
79 or 80 years old. Never had
trews on. He was drover to George
being commissariat to the garri
son at F[ort] William to the
last. Died at Morvern. He
had six sons – two of whom
were drowned on Cuan
na h-Eirinn having a ves[s]el of
their own with which they
traded to Ireland. There we[re]
2 da[ugh]t[er]s died unmarried.
Donald Molach – “hairy Don[al]d”
He was called – in Savary.
His wife Jane Stewart of
Ardslignish. The mother
of Donull Molach was Ann
Macinnes native of Morvern

Some of the story has clearly been exaggerated from the telling but it is based upon historical facts such as those provided by the Rev. Ian Carmichael from his book Lismore in Alba (1948):

The Appin Banner has a yellow St. Andrew’s Cross on a back-ground of light blue silk; the dimensions 5 feet hoist, with a fly of 6 feet 7 inches. It is now in the Military Museum, Edinburgh Castle, hanging beside the banner of the English troops-Barrel’s Regiment (King’s Own Royal) – whom the Appin Regiment charged and broke. Dark stains, said to be the blood of its defenders, are still to be seen, together with the marks of bullet holes…Twelve banners of the Highland Clans flew at Culloden. Only the banner of the Appin Regiment came home again. The remaining eleven were publicly burned by the common hangman at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.

As is stated, the banner named in Gaelic Bratach Bhàn nan Stiùbhartaich (The White Banner of the Stewarts [of Appin]) was kept for many years in the United Services Museum in Edinburgh Castle. It can still seen as it is now housed in the Jacobite Room in the New Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street, Edinburgh.

References:

CW 126(g), fos. 203r-203v

Ian Carmichael, Lismore in Alba (Perth: Leslie, 1948)

Duncan Livingstone, 'The Stewarts of Appin at Culloden', The Celtic Monthly, vol. 4 (1896), pp. 91-93, 119-20, 131-33.

Image:

The Appin Banner, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.