Ossian Collection > History of the Highlands and of the Highland clans > Volume 3

252 HISTORY OF THE HIGHLAND?.
tioned. Among the wouiidcc!, tlie principal was LocliicI, who was sho*
in both ancles with some grape-sliot, at the head of his regiment, alter
discharging his pistol, and while in the act of drawing ids sword. On
falling, his two brothers, between whom he was advancing, raised him
up, and carried him off the field in their arms. To add to his misfor-
tunes, Cliarles also lost a considerable number of gentlemen, his mosi
devoted adherents, wlio liiid charged on foot in the first rank.
Lord Strathallan was tlie only person of distinction that fell among
the low country regiments. Lord Kilmarnock and Sir John Wedder-
burn were taken prisoners. The former, in the confusion of the battle,
mistook, amidst the smoke, a party of English dragoons for Fitz-James's
horse, and was taken. Having lost his hat, he was led bare-lieaded to
the front line of the English infantry. His son, Lord Boyd, who held
a commission in the English army, unable to restrain his feelings, left
the ranks, and, going up to his unfortunate parent, took off his
own hat, placed it on his father's head, and returned to his place with-
out uttering a word. This moving scene brouglit a tear from many
an eye.
At other times, and under diSerent circumstances, a battle like that
of Culloden would have been regarded as an ordinary occurrence, of
which, when all matters were duly considered, the victors could have little
to boast. The Highland army did not e.\ceed five thousand fighting men ;
and when it is considered that the men had been two days without sleep,
were exhausted by the march of the preceding night, and had scarcely
tasted food for forty-eight hours, the wonder is tliat they fought so well
as they did, against an army almost double in point of numbers, and
which laboured under none of the disadvantages to which, in a more
especial manner, the overthrow of the Highlanders is to be ascribed.
Nevertheless, as the spirits of the great majority of the nation had been
sunk to the lowest state of despondency, by the reverses of the royal
arras at Preston and Falkirk, this unlooked for event was hailed as one
of the greatest military achievements of ancient or modern times ; and
the duke of Cumberland, who had, in consequence, an addition of
twenty-five thousand pounds per annum made to his income by parlia-
ment, was regarded as the greatest hero of ancient or modern times.
In its consequences, as entirely and for ever destructive of the claims of
the unfortunate house of Stuart, the battle was perhaps one of the most
important ever fought ; but neither the duke nor his men are greatly to
be lauded for their prowess ; and they sullied, by their barbarity, any
glory they obtained on the field. Though vanquished, the Highlanders
retired from the field with honour, and free from that foul reproach which
has fixed an indelible stain upon the memories of the victors.
After the carnage of the day had ceased, the brutal soldiery, who,
from the fiendish delight which they took in sprinkling one another with
the blood of the slain, " looked," as stated by one of themselves, " like so