Culloden Cairn
The spot where the fiercest fighting of the battle took place is marked
by a cairn. It was erected in 1881 by Duncan Forbes, the last
resident proprietor of the Culloden estate and a descendant of the Lord
President of the Court of Session of '45 fame. The cairn (20 feet high by
18 feet in diameter) is built of rough stones mingled with soil.
At the same time as he erected the cairn, Mr Forbes had slabs of stone
placed on the spots where tradition told the various sections of
combatants were interred. The Highland dead appear to have been buried according
to their clans - the Mackintoshes, Camerons, Stewarts, etc. - in separate
trenches. The headstone put up on each of them bears simply the
name of the clan carved boldly on the slab. And where clansmen were
buried indiscriminately, the inscription indicates that.
The relatively few Hanovarian dead were interred in the only arable
land that existed on the moor at the time of the battle. To this day,
the place is known as "The Field of the English."
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