"'Tis no matter. We shall meet them, and
behave like brave fellows;" but the Highlanders,
broken in spirits from want of food, were
not like the men who at Preston had swept off
arms with a single blow of their scythe-blades,
or who, single-handed, had driven before them
flocks of dismounted dragoons. Still they were
at bay and in earnest, full of fight, and proud of
their former successes against the king's troops.

And now let us describe the field of battle.
Drummossie Moor (Culloden) is a large heathy,
mossy, melancholy moor, traversed longitudinally
by a by-road, and sprinkled with a few shielings,
each with its little tributary kail patch. It
is two miles inland from the south shore of the
Moray Frith, five miles from Inverness, and ten
or twelve from Nairn. Inverness was behind
the rebels; on their right, a rolling range of blue
Ross-shire mountains across the river Nairn; on
their left, the sea, with the park of Culloden
stretching downwards towards the shore of the
Frith. To the east, says Robert Chambers,
the moor spreads away like a shoreless sea, as
far as the eye can reach.

The Prince's army, drawn up in two lines,
consisted of only about five thousand men. The
right was protected by the turf walls of a small
farmstead. The left extended to a plashy morass,
in the direction of Culloden House. In the front
were the clan regiments of Atholl, Cameron,
Appin, Fraser, Macintosh, Maclachlan, Maclean,
John Roy Stuart, Farquharson, Clanronald,
Keppoch, and Glengarry. The second scanty
line comprised the low-country, the French and
Irish regiments, Lord Ogilvie's, Lord Lewis
Gordon's, Glenbucket, the Duke of Perth. Four
small cannon were placed at each wing, and four
more in the centre. Lord George Murray
commanded the right wing, Lord John Drummond
the left, and General Stapleton the second line.
Charles himself stood with a small body of
guards upon a mound in the rear of the whole.

The front ranks of the Highlanders were
armed with muskets, broadswords, pistols, and
dirks. They carried on their left arms a round
wooden target covered with leather, and studded
with nails. They had also small knives stuck
into the garters of the right leg. Some of the
rear rank men had no guns nor targets, and
were shoeless and half naked. They carried
their cartridges in pouches on their right side.
Many of them wore the philabeg, or kilt,
pulled through betwixt their legs, so as to
leave the thigh almost naked. The artillerymen,
also in kilts, had reared beside every gun,
cylindrical shields of wicker-work to protect
themselves. Those of our readers who have seen
a Highland regiment, can picture to themselves
the large-limbed, stalwart swordsmen, in the
prime of their manhood, looking as if they could
not die; the white cockades of the Cragsmen
gleaming, their dark-green, black, and scarlet
tartans fluttering in the cold moor wind that
shook the oak, yew, and box-tree badges in
their bonnets.

About eleven in the forenoon, the dim grey
line of the distant moor, bright with April
sunshine, gloomed and darkened with the
advancing lines of Cumberland's army, that
gradually widened out, and glistened with steel
points. The Prince went out to the moor, and
ordered a cannon to be fired, to summon his
stragglers.

The royal army was disposed in three lines;
the centres of all the regiments of the second
line being behind the terminations of those of the
first, and those of the third line occupying a
similar position in regard to the second. Thus,
the various bodies of which the army consisted
were in a manner indented into each other.
Betwixt every two regiments of the first line were
placed two cannon. The left flank was protected
by Kerr's Dragoons (the 11th), under Colonel
Lord Ancrum; the right by a bog; and
Cobham's Dragoons (the 10th) stood in two
detachments beside the third line. The Argyle
Highlanders guarded the baggage. The disposition
thus made was allowed by the best authorities
to have been admirable; because it was
impossible for the Highlanders to break one
regiment without finding two ready to supply its
place. The insurgent army was also allowed to
be very well posted, upon a supposition that
they were to be attacked.

There is a contemporary print which represents
the English army as it now appeared.
The burly choleric young duke wears a star on the
breast of his long, stiff, gold-laced coat, and is
adorned with a close curled wig and a three-
cornered cocked-hat. He is riding, and pointing
out a regiment with his walking-cane. The
grenadiers have cocked-hats, long surtouts, sash-
belts, swords, and long white gaiters. The
fumes of the Adam and Eve ale have dispersed
long ago in this keen Scotch air. The colours
rise and blossom from the centre of each
regiment. The officers, with their spontoons
(half-pikes), stand at the wings. The drummer-
boys are a little in advance. The dragoons
look solid, but clumsy; their skirts are long
and loose, their massive boots square-toed, their
stirrup-leathers larger, their pistols bigger,
their carbines more unwieldy than those our
cavalry now use. Men of the Uncle Toby
and Corporal Trim character are in those ranks
side by side with young Wolfe (afterwards the
hero of Quebec), and officers of the Colonel
Gardiner stamp; simple-hearted, pious, and
brave.

Ever since the routs of Preston and Falkirk,
the duke (who really had some head, though
Fontenoy, like the Balaklava charge, was only
a magnificent blunder) had been studying how
to make the bayonet superior to the broadsword.
Hitherto, when a Highlander came flying down
at King George's grenadiers, winged with his
stormy tartans, he caught the bayonet in his
target, then turning it aside with his brawny
and hairy arm, leaped in on the defenceless
soldier, dirk in one hand and swinging
claymore in the other, often killing two men at
the same moment, one with each hand. The
duke, no mere strutter about parades, had
thought out a remedy for this. He conceived