The prince had not expected that the duke would leave Aberdeen before May, and his troops were scattered about. They had been for weeks in a state of semi-starvation, and had to roam the country to find food for a bare subsistence. The men were discontented for lack of pay; the leaders were jealous and suspicious of each other; some of the clans claimed special rights and precedences. It was a divided, a disheartened, almost a demoralized army of 7,000 men which, on April 15th, stood, with barely one ration for each man in the commissariat, upon Culloden Moor, about four miles north-east of Inverness. Unequally matched as the two armies would have been if they had met on the 15th, they were much more so on the next day, when the battle joined. For in the intervening night, a strategical misadventure prostrated the spirit and weakened the efficiency of the prince’s army. There was an abortive attempt at a night attack on the royalist camp. After a long weary march, the rebel army failed to concentrate in time for a night surprise; and, disheartened and fatigued, it marched back to Culloden Moor. Here, many at once lay down to sleep, others scattered in search of food. At noon of the 16th, the two armies confronted each other. Lord George Murray was watching for the proper moment to attack, but, without waiting for orders, the clans in the centre and right wings rushed down with their broadswords, and in spite of a galling fire broke through the front line of the enemy. But the second line had been trained to resist a Highland onset; they reserved their fire until the clansmen had almost reached the points of the bayonets, and then it told with deadly effect. The broadswords could not penetrate the steady line of bayonets; for the assailants it was either flight or death. The three MacDonald regiments had been placed in the left wing of the rebel army. They claimed the right wing, and even in the supreme moment of battle, Highland pride predominated over military duty. They did not respond to the order to advance, and retired upon the second line. And now, a boundary wall on the prince’s right had been thrown down by the Argyleshire Campbells, and a way made for the duke’s cavalry to operate on the flank and rear. His main army advanced in compact order, and it became a panic, and “save himself who can,” with the clansmen. The MacDonalds and a portion of the second line retired in fair order; but the duke’s cavalry cut off all stragglers; and all the wounded rebels on the battlefield, even those who were next morning found alive, were—by the duke’s orders it is said—savagely put to death.