Siege of Fort Augustus
Who Fought
600 men of the Independent Highland Companies (government); Clan Fraser of Lovat garrison (Jacobite)
History & Significance
The first siege of Fort Augustus, at the SW end of Loch Ness, Scotland, took place in December 1745 and was part of the Jacobite rising of 1745.
A force of 600 men from the recently formed Independent Highland Companies, formed to support the British-Hanoverian government, liberated the fort from the Jacobite Clan Fraser of Lovat after a small skirmish. Apart from this slight skirmish there was no fighting in the siege and there were no casualties.
The Clan Fraser had originally supported the British Government during the Jacobite rebellion of 1715–1716. However, during the rebellion of 1745–1746 a large number of them supported the Jacobite cause. Shortly after the siege of Fort Augustus, Lord Loudoun with 600 men of the Independent Companies of Sutherland, Mackay, Grant and Munro went in search of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat who was the chief of Clan Fraser. Lord Lovat had allowed his son to go off with a band of Frasers to join the Jacobite leader Prince Charles. The idea was that Lord Lovat would be 'made a hostage for the peaceable behaviour of his clan'. However Lord Lovat, who had originally agreed to this move, escaped from his home at Castle Downie, evading capture. This move was to stop any more of the Clan Fraser joining his son (the Master of Lovat) and the 300 Frasers who had already defected to the Jacobites. Lord Lovat made the excuse that 'he could not govern his son and some of the young men of his name'.
The ground they fought on
The site of Siege of Fort Augustus lies on Unnamed Igneous Intrusion, Neoproterozoic, bedrock that formed in the Neoproterozoic. The rock here is felsic-rock.
A government force of 600 men from the newly raised Independent Highland Companies descended on Fort Augustus in December 1745 and dislodged Clan Fraser of Lovat after no more than a slight skirmish, retaking the fort without a single casualty on either side, a swift and almost bloodless reassertion of Hanoverian authority at a key strategic point on the south-western shore of Loch Ness.
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- Siege of Fort Augustus (December 1745) · Wikipedia
- Siege of Fort Augustus (1746) · Wikipedia