Footnotes

ʻI HAVE HAD TO DEAL WITH THESE SAVAGE HIGHLANDERS' – A REMARKABLE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF PRESTONPANS, WRITTEN BY A MEMBER OF THE DEFEATED ENGLISH ARMY, a colonel of the Dragoons serving under General Cope: his letter being dated from Edinburgh on the day that the Jacobite army entered Preston in triumph. The author was then living in Jacobite Edinburgh under parole following his capture at what he calls "that unlucky battle near Preston", stating at the opening of the letter that "I cou'd not answer sooner, being then on the Kinge for removing to this place". Although Whitney managed to append a shaky signature, his letter had to be dictated ("...My Secretary makes her Compliments to You..."), for he had been wounded in the sword arm during the battle ("...It was broke half way betwext my Wrest & my Elbow. The small bone much shattered..."). Included in the lot is an indented ordnance receipt, signed by Whitney ("Shugborough: Whitney"), for tents, dated at Leith on 27 February 1743/4: even though unwounded, Whitney's signature here is not much steadier.

Our letter's address panel tells its own story. Originally addressed by Whitney to "Lieu.t Campbell Aid De Camp to the Hon.ble Major Gen.ll Bland to the care of Major Sanger in Brewer Street Golden Square", the second part has been crossed out and Campbell's forwarding address inserted in the upper part of the panel as: "w.th the Army under the command of the Duke of Cumberland"; the letter's delivery being attested by the presence of manuscript and traces of hand-stamped postal markings. The recipient can be identified as Lieutenant Archibald Campbell of the 3rd Regiment of Dragoons who was ADC to General Bland and served under ʻButcher' Cumberland at Culloden the following year: two of Campbell's military order books for 1745-6 are preserved at the National Army Museum (NAM 1968-07-228).

At the Battle of Prestonpans Whitney had commanded a squadron under Colonel James Gardiner, who had taken over the 13th Regiment of Dragoons (later the 13th Hussars), previously commanded by Bland. When before dawn on the morning of 22 September the Highlanders launched their attack on Cope's position and English musket fire proved ineffective, Whitney was ordered to march his squadron out and attack. The enemy, as he recounts in our letter, opened fire and Whitney's squadron broke and fled. Nor did Gardiner's squadron fare any better. Whitney was wounded and captured; Gardiner killed. In a note to Waverley Walter Scott quotes from Dodderidge's biography of Gardiner: ʻThe Colonel was for a few moments supported by his men, and particularly by that worthy person Lieutenant-Colonel Whitney, who was shot through the arm here, and a few months after fell nobly at the battle of Falkirk' (Note 8). A fellow Lieutenant-Colonel was Charles Whitefoord, whose story of how his life was saved by a Jacobite officer, Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle, and how he was able to repay this act of gallantry by pleading for Stewart's life after Culloden, was of course to provide Scott with the mainspring of his novel.

As Dodderidge records, Whitney is next recorded as taking part in the Battle of Falkirk Muir on 17 January 1746, having succeeded to Gardiner's command of the 13th Dragoons. It is ironic that Whitney's advice in our letter that the cavalry should take care to include infantry among their horse ("... I wou'd intersperse the Cavalry with the Foot, allowing to each Battallion a Squadron..."), was to be ignored at Falkirk by Whitney's own commanding officer, General Henry ʻHangman' Hawley, who made the mistake of launching an unsupported cavalry attack upon the Highlanders; a blunder which lost the English the battle and Whitney his life.

We understand that this letter comes from the collection formed by John Eliot Hodgkin and is listed in his Rariora catalogue published in 1902.