The True story book Author:Andrew Lang Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 198 THE CHEVALIEB JOHNSTONE'S ESCAPE FROM CULLODEN HTHE Chevalier Johnstone (or de Johnstone, as he preferred to J- call himself) was closely connected wi... more »th the Highland army, hastily collected in 1745 for the purpose of restoring Charles Edward to his grandfather's throne. He was aide-de-camp to Lord George Murray, Generalissimo to the little force, and seems to have known enough of warfare to be capable of appreciating his commander's skill. He was also a captain in the regiment of the Duke of Perth, and later, when the petals of the White Rose were trampled under foot, he became an officer in the French service. From his position, therefore, he was peculiarly fitted to tell the tale of those two eventful years, 1745 and 1746. Though only the son of a merchant, Johnstone was well connected, and, like many Scottish gentlemen of that day, had been bred in loyalty to the Jacobite cause. He was one of the first to join the Prince when he had reached Perth, and it was from the Prince himself that he received his company, after the fight at Prestonpans. His life was all romance, but the part on which it is our present purpose to dwell is the account he has left in his memoirs of his escape from the field of Culloden, and the terrible sufferings he went through for some months, till he finally made his way safely to Holland. 'The battle of Culloden,' he says,' ' was lost rather by a series of mistakes on our part than by any skilful manceuvre of the Duke of Cumberland,' and every Scot in arms knew too well the doom that awaited him at the ' Butcher's' hands. The half-starved Highlanders were no match for the well-fed English troops, and when the day was lost, and the rout became general, each man sought to conceal himself in the fastnesses of the nearest mountains, and, as...« less