KILLIECRANKIE

BATTLE OF.—Fought July 17th, 1689, between the forces of William III and the adherents of James II. “General Mackay, the officer sent against Claver house, had about 3000 foot and some companies of horse under his command. But they were mostly all raw recruits, and entire strangers to the Highland way of fighting. At the head of the wild and gloomy pa of Killiecrankie, Mackay found himself in front of the rebels. He drew up his men, three deep, along the side of the narrow valley into which the pa opens. The Highlanders occupied the hill on the north side of the valley. At this time, the bayonet screwed into the muzzle of the musket, so that troops could not fire with bayonets fixed. The Highlanders, in dense ma es broke down from the hill. Firing their guns once, they dropped them, and then with target on the left arm, and flashing broadsword they rushed, wildly yelling, on the enemy. Mackay’s troops fired a volley, which did little harm to the loose array of their leaping, bounding foes, and before they could screw in their bayonets, the Highlanders were among them. An empty musket without a bayonet could do little against the sweeping broadsword. A panic seized Mackay’s raw levies, and they broke and fled, pursued and cut down by the savage Highlanders. Claver house never knew that he had won a victory. He fell at the beginning of the action, pierced by a musket ball which entered beneath his arm. When one in a pack of hungry wolves is killed, the rest turn upon him and eat him up. Claver house’s own men, true to their savage instinct of plunder, stripped his body, and left it naked upon the field, where it was with difficulty distinguished from the other bodies of the fallen!”