Any military body which is essentially an irregularly raised volunteer force presents certain peculiar problems of recruitment, discipline and organisation. The resources available to a regular army to secure enlistment, discipline and supplies, were, because of its very nature, denied to the Jacobite army of 1745/6. The methods, however, by which the problems of recruitment, discipline and finance were solved by the rebel army were often to play a decisive part in the fate of the rebellion as a whole. Problems of local recruitment, and the availability of small parties of men to enforce recruiting or levy money, were often to affect the fortunes of the rebel army operating at a distance of several counties. In one sense such local activities remained isolated from the main strategy, for local recruitment was apparently much less affected by the varying fortunes of the main force than might have been expected. It is difficult to trace a discernible pattern between important military successes or reverses and local recruitment. Local recruitment, for instance, was affected primarily by the presence locally of the main force rather than by the news of military actions elsewhere. The major actions of the campaign do not appear to have had a decisive effect on recruitment, even in their own immediate neighbourhood. From, for instance, the St. Andrews district, out of a total of forty-four rebel recruits in the official "List of Persons concerned in the Rebellion," only five joined after the Jacobite victory of Prestonpans. Again, from Haddington, an area which one would also expect to reflect the action at Prestonpans, out of fifty-nine recruits, only ten joined after that battle. These statistics alone, of course, are not conclusive. The lists of named adherents are not exhaustive and precise details of time of adherence are not given in all cases. The figures do, however, serve to suggest that the factors which explain local recruitment. are complex rather than simple. Such factors are examined separately in relation to each geographical area.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:615327 |
| Date | January 1963 |
| Creators | McCann, Jean E. |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/9381 |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds