12 April 1746: The Duke of Cumberland’s army marched the 12 miles from Cullen to Fochabers. On the march near the coast, they had the “pleasant Prospect of our Transports and Men of War, standing in close to the Shore, who discharged some Shot at a Party of Rebel Hussars”. At Fochabers, Cumberland’s army crossed the River Spey “with no other loss than one dragoon and four women drowned.” A detachment of the Jacobite army under the Duke of Perth and Lord John Drummond made no attempt to hinder the crossing.
12 April 1746: Four days before the battle of Culloden, an unsigned paper was written that proposed that the Jacobite army should march out from Inverness and head south into Badenoch and Atholl, bypassing the Duke of Cumberland’s army in Aberdeenshire, and seize the town of Perth, cutting off Cumberland’s overland communications.
