During the retreat from Derby northward through the winter of 1745, a fundamental weakness of the clan army became apparent: as individual clans passed through or near their home territory, men left to check on their families, tend their cattle and secure their property against potential reprisals. The gentry officers struggled to prevent desertion. By the time the army returned to Scotland, it had lost hundreds of men — not to battle but to the dispersal of Highland clan psychology. The army that eventually fought at Falkirk and Culloden was smaller and less cohesive than the force that had swept south. This was the inherent weakness of an army whose soldiers were tenant farmers with families and livestock to protect.
Jacobite clan army (declining from c.5,500 through desertion); government pursuit cavalry
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
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