Battle of Justice Mills - September 13 1644

 

To: The Committee of Estates

From: Lord Balfour of Burleigh 

The Rebel Montrose was bought to battle outside Aberdeen on Friday the 13th day of September of the year 1644 by our forces defending that fair city from the King's men, being mainly drawn from the city garrison as well as both local men of quality and their diverse troops of horse and the Aberdeenshire militia called out in defence of their homes. 

 

The battlefield was near the outskirts of the town and took place around the Justice Mills and a small valley in which flows the How Burn. The Covenanters occupied the high ground to the left while Montrose's army deployed on the other side of the valley. 

 

The Covenanter left wing is made up of 5 troops of unbrigaded horse, 3 lance armed and 2 pistol armed. On the high ground to their right is Burleigh's own regiment, the city militia and no less than three units of untried Aberdeenshire militia. Montrose's Irish brigade can been seen in the distance deployed initially in the centre of the Royalist line. If you have followed my previous battle reports you will remember that we use the grid based "For King and Parliament" ruleset (which are a very good set of rules) and 10mm figures, mainly from Pendraken Miniatures.

The Covenanter right flank showing the Upper and Lower Justice Mills and Sir John Forbes's small cavalry brigade as initially deployed and Forbes's Regiment in reserve in the rear.

     

The action opened with a thunderous cannonade, which happily dispersed a small party of Irish picked men (a unit of forlorn hope). Montrose and his remaining Irishes, organised into three regiments of musket armed troops, did then maneuver to oppose our left flank, while the other rebels did initially merely observe our forces arrayed before them on the hills around the Upper and Lower Mills for the most part.

 

My Lord Burleigh did try in vain to manuvere what infantry he could to oppose the rebels, and our troops of horse of that wing, under diverse command, did of necessity individually bravely close with the rebels and engage them with lance, pistol and sword in hand to hand combat. Despite a fearful charge by Lord Fraiser's pistol armed troop of horse which did much execution amongst the Irishes lead by one Colonel MacDonnell and would have seen them off (3 hits!!) the cess of the Irish was with them and, with the assistance of the infamous gael leader Colkitto, who was leading their brigade, they did repulse the charge without disorder (3 saves!!).

 

Lord Frasier's Horse inflicts 3 hits on MacDonnell's unit of Irish cammanded shot (8, 9, 10), enough to remove the unit from the table....But equally spectacularly the Royalists pull 3 chits with high enough scores (7,7,9) to negate all three hits.....  

The double musket fire by the experienced Irish musket men eventually overcame several of our troops of horse which were forced from the field.

A later turn and all three veteran Irish units are still present, with MacDonnell threatening to outflank the remaining Covenanter cavalry on the left flank.  

On our right Sir John Forbes' bravery must be commended as he did eventually lead most of his brigade over How Burn through a hail of fire from the rebel Montrose's own cannons (Lord Alexander Keith's troop of lancers being put to the rout by a unfortunate hit) and engaged a small brigade of rebels under the command of James Hay. Sir John lead Lord Lewis Gordon's troop up the hill and dispersed Nat Gordon's troop of horse by the fire of their pistols alone. However as they did not need to pursue Nat Gordon's men from the field the rebel cannon were able to fire their final salvo at Forbes men who were this time unwilling to stand the fierce bombardment.

 

Gordon vs Gordon - on the far hill Lord Lewis Gordon's Troop charges home uphill into Nat Gordon's small unit of Royalist horse which has already been disordered previously by the Covenanter Artillery unit in the foreground. Lord Lewis's pistol fire was enough to destroy the unfortunate Royalist unit, boosting the Covenanter victory medal tally to 3 in total (impressive eh!!).  However the next turn saw Lord Lewis's unit dispersed by a shot from the Royalist Artillery, leaving Sir John Forbes with only his own troop left to face the Rebels.

So my Lords I must report that the rebels, having seen off our cavalry, claimed victory on collecting 8 victory medals to 3 and eagerly approached the now open city to rapaciously carry off much loot and treasure belonging to its peaceful citizens.

I trust that the rebel Montrose will one day finally be defeated and he should recognise that on that occasion he will be called to answer for his many and diverse actions.        

Yours etc 

Lord Balfour of Burleigh

 

This was another of our test games covering Montrose's campaign in Scotland in 1644/45 using our "Celtic Fringe" house rules. The extra rules worked well and give a good "Celtic" flavour to the main FK&P rules. Next up will probably be the fight at Philiphaugh - can Leslie's experienced troopers finally end Montrose's "year of victories", or will he manage to live to fight another day?