The Piper's Refrain: "Farewell, Inverawe"

"I'll tell it to you as they told it to me
By the glow of the campfire burning.
By the banks of the water where we sported and played,
They once faced the fury of battle.

And up through the Champlain came the Highland Brigade
The pipes and the drummer played 'Scotland the Brave.'
But when they sailed home the piper's refrain
Was, Oh, how cruel the volley."

Rich Nardin's ballad The Piper's Refrain has haunted me ever since hearing it performed by Bok, Muir and Trickett on a folkways CD that arrived in our house at Christmas.  There's nothing like a three-step lament for starting a fresh tear from sockets long dry.  The 250th anniversary of the great British tragedy and French triumph at the core of the song will be commemorated this June at Fort Ticonderoga.  You may be sure that our clan be will be on hand, as were a couple of my colonial ancestors back in 1758, though not with the shattered Highlanders.

It was a murderous frontal assault against the well-fortified French lines in which the attackers suffered 50% casualties.  The 42nd Highlanders - the Fabled Black Watch - had no scaling ladders, so those who managed to hack their way through the obstacles with their broadswords attempted to mount the French works on one another's shoulders.  Lieutenant William Grant of the 42nd would later write:

"The attack began a little past one in the afternoon, and about two the fire became general on both sides, which was exceedingly heavy, and without any intermission, insomuch that the oldest soldier present never saw so furious and incessant a fire. The affair at Fontenoy was nothing to it: I saw both. We laboured under insurmountable difficulties. The enemy's breast-work was about nine or ten feet high, upon the top of which they had plenty of wall-pieces fixed, and which was well lined in the inside with small arms. But the difficult access to their lines was what have them a fatal advantage over us. They took care to cut down monstrous large oak trees which covered all the ground from the foot of their breast-work about the distance of a cannon-shot every way in their front. This not only broke our ranks, and made it impossible for us to keep our order, but put it entirely out of our power to advance till we cut our way through. I have seen men behave with courage and resolution before now, but so much determined bravery can hardly be equalled in any part of the history of ancient Rome. Even those that were mortally wounded cried aloud to their companions, not to mind or lose a thought upon them, but to follow their officers, and to mind the honour of their country. Nay, their ardour was such, that it was difficult to bring them off. They paid dearly for their intrepidity. The remains of the regiment had the honour to cover the retreat of the army, and brought off the wounded as we did at Fontenoy. When shall we have so fine a regiment again? I hope we shall be allowed to recruit."

But it is not just the ghosts of those hundreds of kilted warriors dead and maimed on fields before Carillon that haunt the song, but one ghost story in particular that is the stuff of Adirondack myth and Black Watch legend.

"To one Duncan Campbell it came in a dream
That he'd meet his fate where he never had been;
Where the blue waters roll and the stickerbush tear,
It's "Travel well, Duncan, I'll wait for you there."

Duncan Campbell was the Major of the 42nd Highlanders and Laird of Inverawe and he died of wounds suffered in the attack on the French lines.  That much of his biography is safely established.  But his legend has been embellished over the years by the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson (who makes him a Cameron instead of a Campbell) and Wyllis Cooper's 1940's radio show Quiet, Please!  In 1922 the New York Times devoted more ink to retelling this old ghost story than it does to hard news today on a page full of advertising, though in the Gray Lady's defense the paper noted that "the attention of the world is turned to things of the spirit land" so presumably this was still news that was fit to print.

The story goes that one evening when the laird was alone in his hall, there came a desperate pounding at the door.  In came a man claiming to have accidentally killed another and pleading for sanctuary.  After impulsively swearing an oath to hide the man from his pursuers, Campbell had no sooner concealed the fugitive when those who were after him arrived at the castle and told the laird that the man they were seeking had killed his own cousin.  Bound by his oath, the master of Inverawe did not betray the murderer.  That night as he tossed in turmoil, he was visited by the spectral figure of his departed kinsman who commanded in a dreadful voice;

"Inverawe! Inverawe! Blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!"   

The next morning the laird tried to take back his promise but the fugitive held him to his oath, so Campbell lead him from the hall and secreted him in a mountain cave.  This nice legal distinction did not impress the ghost that haunted him, for it returned the next night with the same fearful injunction.  Campbell returned to the cave to find it empty.  When the ghost appeared for a third time, it's tone was sad instead of stern:

"Farewell, Inverawe! Farewell, till we meet at TICONDEROGA!"

Long did Campbell remark these words, though the strange name held no meaning for him.  He later joined the Black Watch and served in the regiment until it was sent to America to fight the French and he learned that the place they were marching for was called Ticonderoga. 

"From Fort William Henry their boats have shoved off
To the North of Lake George in the morning;
To the place the Frenchmen call Carillon,
And the Indians: Ticonderoga.

And the word struck Duncan like a thunderbolt there;
Everyone knew of the warning.
"Oh, give us a tune to remember me by,
For tomorrow I'll not be returning."

Nothing his brother officers could do would dissuade him for taking this for a premonition of his death, and indeed when they tried to tell him they had not yet come to the place the ghost appeared for a final time in his dreams and confirmed their rendezvous.  In the coming fight his arm was shattered and he died following its amputation.  Major Campbell is buried at Fort Edward and his gravestone reads;

Here lye's the Body of Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, Esquire, Major to the old Highland Regiment, aged 55 Years, who died the 17th July, 1758, of the Wounds he received in the Attack of the Retrenchment of Ticonderoga or Carillon, on the 8th July, 1758.

There are further supernatural tales that signs of Campbell's death were seen by his kinfolk in Scotland:

"Mr. Campbell, the present Inverawe, in the letter mentioned above, says that forty-five years ago he knew an old man whose grandfather was foster-brother to the slain major of the forty-second, and who told him the following story while carrying a salmon for him to an inn near Inverawe.

The old man's grandfather was sleeping with his son, then a lad, in the same room, but in another bed. This son, father of the narrator, 'was awakened,' to borrow the words of Mr. Campbell, 'by some unaccustomed sound, and behold there was a bright light in the room, and he saw a figure, in full Highland regimentals, cross over the room and stoop down over his father s bed and give him a kiss. He was too frightened to speak, but put his head under his coverlet and went to sleep. Once more he was roused in like manner, and saw the same sight. In the morning he spoke to his father about it, who told him that it was Macdonnochie [the Gaelic patronymic of the laird of Inverawe] whom he had seen, and who came to tell him that he had been killed in a great battle in America. Sure enough, said my informant, it was on the very day that the battle of Ticonderoga was fought and the laird was killed.'

It is also said that two ladies of the family of Inverawe saw a battle in the clouds, in which the shadowy forms of Highland warriors were plainly to be descried; and that when the fatal news came from America, it was found that the time of the vision answered exactly to that of the battle in which the head of the family fell."

Was it the sepulchral spirit or the Frenchman's ball that dispatched the laird of Inverawe? We have encountered such revenants before, restlessly wandering the battlements of Elsinore, rattling the chains of avarice, or lurking just beyond the counselor's campfire moaning; "Give me back my golden hand!"  Or was it merely the blundering of Abercrombie, out generalled and outclassed by Montcalm, who needlessly sacrificed his best regiments against the French entrenchments at Carillon?  Those waiting in vain by the shore of Loch Awe and in scores of Highland households found explanation in the old laws of blood, clan and oath, and gave heed to the ghosts that haunt us.

"And up through the Champlain came the Highland Brigade
The pipes and the drummer played 'Scotland the Brave.'
But when they sailed home the piper's refrain
Was, Oh, how cruel the volley."

Comments

[F. J. Taylor]

Interesting legend, which I heard many years ago. However, the song, while interesting, is a modern one, and is incorrect in several historic respects - it was not the "Highland Brigade" which wasn't formed till the Crimean War (1854 - 56) but the 42nd RHR (the Black Watch). I believe Murray's Highlanders were there as well, but the BW took the assault and bore the brunt of the casualties.

The battle was indeed a ferocious one, with the Highlanders being scarcely able to reach, let alone penetrate the dense barricades of the French, despite desperate heroism and three assaults, and the fierce and intense fire of the French caused great casualties to the Highlanders, who lost many officers and almost 50% of the regiment.

Abercrombie, the Brit CO, saw the day was lost, and ordered the Highlanders to retreat, but so persistent and valiant were they that it took several repetitions of this order to get them to break off the assault. Despite their heavy losses, they took off all their dead and wounded, including Major Campbell.

Also, the pipes wouldn't have played "Scotland the Brave" which was a modern song written in 1958 by Cliff Hanley. The tune played would have most likely been "The Campbells are Coming" (the BW was originally a Campbell-based militia), or one of the other old marching tunes of the regiment, such as the "Hieland Laddie" a very old tune that is related to an even older Irish march of the clan O'Sullivan, "Fead an Iolaire" - "The Eagle's Whistle"

[Tim Abbott]

Great story, Tour Marm! The Childe Ballads are awash in cruel deeds and murder by moonlight. My favorite of all musicians, Richard Thompson, (and I am certainly not alone in this opinion http://ditchingboy.blogspot.com/2006/07/richard-thompson-1000-years-of-popular.html) does an appropriately haunting version of Bonny St. Johnstone, which derrives from varients of Childe Ballad #20, the Cruel Mother. http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=586

[Tour Marm]

I'm addicted to Scottish ballads, too! And I've learned to take all with a grain (or shaker) of salt concerning the facts.

The Scots must have the most hauntingly melodic, lyrical, and maudlin expositions of death, murder, defeat, and treachery in the world!

We Campbells have suffered a bad reputation ever since Glen Coe ( check out http://www.contemplator.com/scotland/glen_coe.html )and I am still hesitant to enter a McDonald's for fear of retribution! So it is not surprising that R.L. Stevenson substituted the Camerons for Campbells.

My family too, has a ghost tale concerning a spirit appearing at our house in Virginia, the day he died abroad.

Since we are on the subject of Scottish ballads, please allow me to digress:

My stepmother/cousin wondered about the first and last lines of the Clifton Webb film, "The Man Who Never Was". She thought that either Burns or Stevenson had written the lines, but I was not convinced of that. Naturally, I contacted the Imperial War Museum in London to enquire as to the source of the quote. I was delighted to receive this reply:

It is a verse from the ballad "Battle of Otterburn". This appears in a manuscript dating from circa 1550. Walter Scott published it in his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" and it was then printed in Francis J Child's "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads", published in five volumes between 1882-1885. There seems to be no named author.

The Battle of Otterburn took place on 5 August 1388 when James Douglas,
2nd Earl of Douglas attacked Henry Percy (Hotspur) in Northumberland. This was part of the frequent border skirmishes between Scotland and England. Percy was defeated but Douglas lost his life, explaining the lines "I saw a dead man win the fight/
And I think that man was I."

http://www.hazelwhyte.com/Scottish_Music/Battle_Of_Otterburn.html

Ah! The history!