Wednesday War Stories ~ The Battle of Culloden, April 1746

Brant Guillory, 16 April 2025

It’s one thing to visit a battlefield, and another thing altogether to visit a giant monument to the losers of the battle (and overall campaign), at a place of veneration, when you’re not even necessarily there to see that monument.

There are a great number of people who enjoy cruising the Highlands of Scotland for the scenery. And ever since the early 2000s, sightseers have also flocked to the Glenfinnan Viaduct because of its prominence in the Harry Potter movies. Well, from the Glenfinnan Viaduct Viewpoint, if you make a 180°, you’re looking at the Glenfinnan Monument, which commemorates Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite rebels of 1745, who got their butts kicked at the Battle of Culloden, which is about a 2-hr drive away.  These pictures are from our trip back in 2004.

click images to enlarge

The wider scenario was this: As a part of the War of Austrian Succession, a Protestant Dutch monarch married a British princess, and replaced a Catholic English monarch to jointly rule over England, Ireland, and Scotland. When the both of them died, the closest available non-Catholic heir was the Hanoverian (German) George I of the Holy Roman Empire, largely opposed by the French, who provided support to the former ruling family of England in exile and hoped to restore them to throne to further French interests.¹

Eventually, enough nutso Frenchmen threw their support behind Charles Edward Stuart to help recruit and equip a force that landed in Scotland and rallied the highland clans to the Jacobite cause, in 1745. Those clans captured Edinburgh, spanked the English around the border country, and eventually – based on some rather dodgy promises about both a imminent French invasion in the South and a groundswell of alleged Jacobite sentiment throughout England – rolled South of Hadrian’s Wall and headed into England.

Not unlike Robb Stark wandering around Lannister lands in Game of Thrones, or Bobby Lee’s fateful romp through Pennsylvania, this foray into England seemed to be more “meandering” than “campaigning” and resulted in no meaningful progress toward the original overall goals of the campaign. Eventually, the Jacobite Army returned to Scotland, pursued under pressure from the English, and after trading victories at some minor battles, the uprising culminated with the Battle of Culloden in April of 1746.

The Jacobite army had camped in the area around Inverness, which also served as a logistics base for them. As the English rode out from Aberdeen, their intent was to engage the Jacobites in a pitched battle, with the goal that they ended the rebellion at once.

Disagreement in the Jacobite leadership about where to set their defensive lines meant that they were not well-formed, nor entrenched, when the British arrived.  Even worse, the Jacobites wasted time, energy, and manpower with an ill-advised attempt at a night spoiling attack before the battle.

On the morning of the battle, a mix of snow and rain made the saturated ground even worse as the Jacobites formed up with the Highlanders in front, and the lowland regiments in reserve. As the English marched over land to the battlefield, the Scots reinforced their front ranks, and God cleared the weather for a better view of the battle.

Just after mid-day, the artillery duel broke out, and for whatever reason² the Scots took that as the perfect time to leave their defensive positions and charge the English. The combination of mucky ground, English canister fire from their cannons, dissolving leadership, and a pretty crappy plan in the first place resulted in the center of the Scottish line veering right, opening a gap in the lines, and a dogpile of confusion as they descended on the English lines. Meanwhile, the Jacobite left wing had farther to go, but like the right wing, they also lost their key leadership, got raked by English artillery fire, and were probably drunk.

 

With both the left wing collapsed and their reserve already committed to the initial charge, the Scots began to fall back, with their retreat covered by the Irish Picquets³. The retreat split the Scots into several columns, where the lowland regiments headed South and eventually disbanded, other regiments headed elsewhere to the south to evade the English, and the Highland regiments were harried back toward Inverness as the English Dragoons chased them, granting no quarter. Surprisingly, the Scots retained a considerable amount of the fighting power between those who escaped and those who never joined the battle in the first place, but absent their leadership they never regained any unity of action or momentum for their campaign.

After the battle, the Jacobite rebellion collapsed. Bonnie Prince Charlie ran back to France⁴. Several clans made overtures toward continuing the rebellion, and occasionally mustered forces into service, but with no continental support, they were little more than family reunions with guns and booze⁵.

In the end Culloden was the last real effort by the Scots to fight off English rule, until the later referendum on devolved home rule in the late 90s. That one involved far fewer bullets, though the alcohol consumption was likely comparable.

 

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If you’re looking to refight the battle, there’s a variety of options, but many are scenarios inside of other games.

	Wargames Illustrated published a Culloden scenario way back in the late 1990s, using a custom set of minis rules.
	Decision Games has The ’45: The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, which covers the campaign that culminates at Culloden.
	Bonnie Prince Charlie, from something called Warthog Games, looks like a class project that was mimeographed for distribution back in 1976.
	Worthington Games’ Jacobite entry into their Hold the Line series, Highland Charge, includes Culloden as one of the battles.
	Jacobite ’45 looks like a coloring book.  And, well, it is a coloring book.  The paper standup soldiers are colored by the players before being assembled as used as minis for the included rules.
	Finally, the Jacobite Rising expansion for Commands & Colors Tricorne from Compass Games is pretty much the gold standard for stable rules, graphic presentation, and, well, availability.

Back in Moves Magazine #38, the info about the reader survey included mention of a proposed quad game that would’ve covered the Jacobite uprising.  If this had ever seen the light of day, maybe we would’ve included it in our Quad Fest at BGF this year

 

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1. You’ll notice that no Austrians were harmed in the writing of that summary
2. they were probably drunk
3. “infantry” with a fancy name
4. insert surrender joke here
5. insert Kentucky joke here