A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

3b2 HISTORY OF THE HIGHLANDS.
two or three weeks before ; but, his enemies averred, that cowardice
was the real motive which induced hira to take refuge in his galley,
from which he witnessed the defeat and destruction of his army.
It would appear, that it was not until the morning of the battle, that
Argyle's men were aware that it was the array of Montrose that was
present, as they considered it quite impossible, that he should have been
able to bring his forces across the mountains, and they imagined, that
the body before them consisted of some of the inhabitants of tlie coun-
try, who had collected to defend their properties, But they were uneceived,
when, in the dawn of the morning, the warlike sound of Mon-
trose's trumpets, resounding through the glen where they lay, and re-
verberating from the adjoining hills, broke upon their ears. This served
as the signal to both armies to prepare for battle. Montrose drew out
his army in an extended line. The right wing consisted of a regiment of
Irish, under tho command of Macdonald, his major-general ; the centre
was composed of the Athole-men, the Stuarts of Appin, and the Macdonalds
of Glencoe, and otlier Highlanders, severally under the command
of Clanranald, M'Lean, and Glengary ; and the left wing consisted of
some Irish, at the head of whom was the brave Colonel O'Kean. A
body of Irish was placed behind the main body as a reserve, under the
command of Colonel James M-Donald, alias O'Neill. The general of
Argyle's army formed it in a similar manner. The Lowland forces
were equally divided, and formed the wings, between which the High-
landers were placed. Upon a rising ground, behind this line, General
Campbell drew up a reserve of Highlanders, and placed a field piece.
Within the house of Inverlochy, which was only about a pistol shot
from the place where the army was formed, he planted a body of forty
or fifly men to protect the place, and to annoy Montrose's men with
discharges of -nmsquetry.* The account given by Gordon of Sallagh,
that Argyle had transported the half of his army over the water at In-
verlochy, under the command of Auchinbreck, and that Montrose de-
feated this division, while Argyle was prevented from relieving it with
the other division, from the intervention of "an arm of the sea, that was
interjected betwixt them and him,"| is certainly erroneous, for the cir-
cumstance is not mentioned by any other writer of the period, and it is
well known, that Argyle abandoned his army, and witnessed its destruc-
tion from his galley,—circumstances, which Gordon altogether over-
looks.
It was at sunrise, on Sunday, the second day of February, ir
the year sixteen hundred and forty-five, that Montrose, after having
formed hij army in battle arraj', gave orders to his men to advance
upon the enemy. The left wing of Montrose's army, under the command
of O'Kean, was the first to commence the attack, by charging
Sp;,l(llng, vol. 1 I. p. 2a5. + Contimiation, p. 5iH.