Siege of Fort Augustus (March 1746)

Siege of Fort Augustus
Part of the Jacobite Rising of 1745

View over Fort Augustus
DateMarch 1746
LocationFort Augustus, Scottish Highlands
Result Jacobite victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of Great BritainBritish-Hanoverians Jacobites
Commanders and leaders
Kingdom of Great BritainUnknown Unknown

The Siege of Fort Augustus was a conflict that took place over two days in 1746 during the Jacobite rising of 1745.[1][2] A rebel Jacobite force succeeded in taking the fort from British-Hanoverian forces in March 1746, after an artillery shell blew up the gunpowder magazine of the fort.[1][2] The Jacobites then used cannons that they had captured at Fort Augustus to lay siege to Fort William.

Background

The forts of Augustus and William had long been a thorn in the side of the western Scottish clans, and when their clan chiefs saw how easily Fort George (the original Fort George that was built on the site of Inverness Castle) was taken, they clamoured for the siege of the forts Augustus and William.[3] The Jacobite leader Prince Charles Edward Stuart obliged and released the Irish piquets, Royal Ecossais and more than 1,500 clansmen of Cameron of Lochiel, MacDonald of Lochgarry (Glengarry) and MacDonald of Keppoch who descended on Fort Augustus at the end of February 1746.[3]

The siege

The Jacobites were fortunate in that Fort Augustus had been designed "more ... for ornament than strength", as a demonstration of the Hanoverian presence in the Scottish Highlands.[3] The fort was badly sited and the curtain walls were feeble.[3] Further, vital installations on the fort were installed in full view in conical towers on top of the four bastions.[3] The government garrison of Fort Augustus was no more powerful than that that had been in Fort George (old Fort George, Inverness), consisting of three companies of Guise's 6th Regiment.[3] However, the governor of the fort, Major Hu Wentworth, placed one of the companies in the old Kiliwhimen Barracks which were in an isolated position on higher ground to the south of the fort.[3] The troops who were placed in the barracks were evicted by a straightforward assault by French troops who were led by Lieutenant Colonel Walter Stapleton.[3] This enabled the Jacobite Colonel James Grant to open his first trenches against the fort on 3 March 1746.[3]

The Jacobite's cannon were actually of little use, even against the unimpressive ramparts of Fort Augusts, however on March 5 a bomb from one of their coehorn mortars broke through the roof of the fort's magazine.[3] The result was that the explosion breached the bastion beneath, laying the fort open wide to an assault and the governor of the fort surrendered without further ado.[3] He was later court-martialed and dismissed from service for doing so.[3]

Aftermath

With Fort Augustus taken the attention of both the Jacobites and the British-Hanoverian Government shifted to that of Fort William which was the last surviving strong point along the Great Glen, and the Jacobites subsequently unsuccessfully laid siege to that fort from March to April 1746.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 History of Fort Augustus highlandclubscotland.co.uk. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  2. 1 2 Fort Augustus travelaccommodation.co.uk. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Duffy, Christopher. (2007). The '45, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Untold Story of the Jacobite Rising. p. 451. ISBN 978-0-7538-2262-3.
  4. ↑ Duffy, Christopher. (2007). The '45, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Untold Story of the Jacobite Rising. p. 452. ISBN 978-0-7538-2262-3.
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