Today I want to tell the incredible story of clearance, migration,
loyalty and bravery of Scots in the late 18th and early 19th Century.
In particular two brothers mentioned on this plaque
who grew up in this house here. Hiya I'm Bruce Fummey, if you're
interested in the people places and events in Scottish history
then at the bottom left-hand side there's a button that you can click to
subscribe anytime during this video. In the
meantime, let me tell you a story
I'm now about 20 miles north of Crieff. Personally I love this view down to
Kenmore and Taymouth Castle in the glen beneath me.
It's certainly a far cry from the battlefields of the American Civil War,
but I'm getting ahead of myself. Look I don't want to get caught up
in admin detail to disturb the story so at the end make sure to check in the
description for details, including this book him on one side, and
me on the other. Now that that's done, let me tell you
why I brought you here today. In 1822, John Campbell First Marquis of Breadalbane,
had almost half a million acres of Perthshire and
Argyll, he was rich! He'd employed an
architect, William Atkinson, to design and build a new east wing to the beautiful
Taymouth Castle that you'll be able to see just in the
distance over my left shoulder. That same year, one of his clan, also
called John Campbell, married a local girl, Clementina Mclaren
on the 21st of September 1822, in the village of Kenmore
over my right shoulder. Their lives were different;
John was from about 16 miles to the east on the other side of Aberfeldy. Now
that's not far these days, but back then it was more of
a trek. Given that he was an apprentice
stonemason, the work in the castle is maybe why
he was here and how he met his new wife Clementina.
The late 18th and early 19th Century was a much more difficult time for the
clansmen of the Marquis than for him. To get to Kenmore I take this stunning
road through Glen Quaich. Now as you come through Glen Quaich, you
can see the remains of cleared settlements all along the shores of
Loch Freuchie there where John Campbell, Second Marquis
of Breadalbane emptied the glen of people. From 1834 to
53, 60 families left Glen Quaich and let's be honest, you
wouldn't want to leave this place unless you had to. It used to be that you
only left when the new breed of clan chief came around recruiting troops
for the British Army. You see they received a bounty and kudos for raising regiments
for Britannia's cause. Crofters toiled in the fields, but the
richest harvest for the nobility was young, able-bodied men, and the
Campbell nobility made that move from Clan Leader to Landlord early.
they supported the Hanoverian side at Culloden with alacrity.
The Clan Chief later harvested men for the Crown for the Napoleonic Wars at the
start of the 19th Century but by the middle of the 19th Century
the population had been so cruelly cleared,
that there were no young men left. They say that out of three and a half
thousand people on Loch Tayside, only a hundred
were left. The late father of the Marquis, had raised two thousand three hundred men
during the last war and sixteen hundred men were from the
Breadalbane Estate. Now 150 couldn't be raised.
He tried to raise a fenceable regiment from the estate in 1850
but where his father raised 1500 willing men,
the son could only find a hundred, and none of them
volunteered. One old botach cried, "put your red coats on the back of the
sheep that have replaced the men".
Ultimately the children of John and Clementina Campbell
were to be part of the flood of bodies, the flotsam and jetsam from these
shores that drifted across the Atlantic.
Initially John and Clementina moved to Kilmadock just outside Doune
to start a family in 1824 perhaps? John the Stonemason was working on the
repairs being carried out to Doune Castle here at the time,
or perhaps that was just my gratuitous attempt to include the set of Castle
Leoch for any transatlantic Outlander fans,
I guess we'll never know.
By the time of the 1841 census, John Campbell was no longer with us.
Clementina Campbell was on her own living in Crieff, in what is now an
outhouse and a garage, with six children, but our story just focuses on two; the
two youngest boys, James and Sandy. Now times must have been hard for her
and the children. It was an environment of potato farming and traditional hand
weaving being overtaken by industrial processes.
Loss of traditional industries due to technological change,
migrants crossing oceans, seems a world away from the present day doesn't it?
It was getting more and more difficult to survive, and so about 1855, like so
many others, 20 year old James Campbell decided to leave his job
as a farm labourer near Auchterarder and seek his fortune across the Atlantic,
and his younger brother Sandy followed a few years later.
James set up in Charleston, a world away from Kenmore here, where his parents had
met. He worked as a Drayman. His younger
brother worked in New York as a Stonemason, like his dad.
Now these accidental facts had huge consequences when the new Clan Chiefs
came recruiting, because within seven years of James's
arrival, their choice of towns put them in opposing sides of a war that
would be the deadliest in American history.
James joined up with a largely Scottish Confederate Militia Company named the
42nd, after the Black Watch, a regiment,
established and recruited in the next town in his father's
hometown of Aberfeldy. Sandy however joined the 79th Highlander
Regiment in the Union Army. Now in June 1862,
Sandy's unit was transferred and landed to occupy parts of James' Island
in preparation for an assault on Charleston, South Carolina.
Before the war, his brother James had lived in Charleston.
The Confederate Forces had prepared their defences, and they were well dug in
behind a long line of breastworks. This was so that they could stand
protected, and fire at shoulder height at approaching Union Forces. Now as these
Union Forces charged, they faced musket balls, they faced grapeshot,
they were bogged down on both sides by
marshy terrain and funneling them into a death trap.
The 8th Michigan, then the 7th Connecticut
and then the 28th Massachusetts were mowed down in swathes,
and then came the 79th New York Highlanders and Sandy Campbell.
We can probably never imagine the hell that it must have been throwing yourself
into the jaws of death to be eaten up by bristling small arms and fighting
artillery. Sandy now a Colour Sergeant makes it to the
parapet of Fort Lamar. He plants the United States flag and he stands
there in the face of the enemy musket and cannon holding the colours
as the point of inspiration for his comrades. Miraculously
he survives until the orders given to withdraw.
The attack had lasted less than 45 murderous minutes.
The Charleston Mercury reported, "the foe, it is true displayed admirable courage.
The famous Highland Regiment, the 79th New York, occupied the prominent place in
the picture, but their desperate onslaughts were of
no avail against the stubborn resolve and lofty valour of our brave boys.
Sandy found out from a prisoner captured in a skirmish
that one of the Confederacy's brave boys showing stubborn resolve and
lofty valor, was his own brother James. In the heat of battle, when Confederate
resistance began to buckle, James a Confederate Lieutenant by this
stage jumped unarmed at the parapet, rolled a log down into a mass of
attacking Union troops and grabbed one of their muskets and
continued fighting".
The Charleston Courier later wrote about the two brothers
"Alexander Campbell fought gallantly in the late action
and displayed a heroism worthy of his regiment and a better cause,
whilst James Campbell was conspicuous and has been honorable mentioned on our
side". The Confederate, James tried to cross the
Union lines asking to visit his unionist brother,
but the Federal Troops would neither permit this nor send for Sandy to be
brought out for a meeting. He was able to pass a letter under a
flag of truce, in which he told his brother
"I was astonished to hear from the prisoners that you were Colour Bearer of
the Regiment that assaulted the battery at this point the other day.
I was in the breastwork during the whole engagement doing my best to beat you,
but I hope that you and I will never again meet face-to-face bitter enemies
in the battlefield, but if such should be the case, you have
but to discharge your duty for your cause,
for I can assure you, that I will strive to discharge my duty to my country
and my cause", and that got me wondering, what is duty? What is patriotism?
If patriotism isn't protecting your brother then what is?
What is it that our leaders ask us to do with high flown rhetoric and call it
duty? If the Campbell brothers had stayed here
by Loch Tay, they may have remained on the same side when recruiting noblemen came
calling, telling them it was their duty to fight
and die for his land. They may have bled and coughed and
choked a different war, but my friend you would not tell with
such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory
the old lie dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
James went on to manage a plantation and eventually bought land in Achepoo River
South Charleston. Sandy moved to Connecticut and set up
business, manufacturing artistic monuments.
James died in 1907 and in 1909 Alexander followed. As it was these two
brothers survived the war but many didn't.
Do you think they'd want to do all over again today for the sake of strategic
interest false claims, rhetoric or a statue? Tha mi an dochas bum bith
lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.
you