February 21, 1746 Jacobite Forces Take Inverness Castle During the 1745 Rising

On February 21, 1746, you're looking at a turning point in the 1745 Rising. Jacobite forces pressured the Government garrison at Inverness Castle until Major George Grant surrendered after engineers undermined the foundations. The Jacobites seized weapons, powder, and supplies before demolishing the fortifications entirely. This wasn't simply capturing a castle — it handed Prince Charles Edward Stuart a functioning regional command base he'd hold until Culloden. There's far more to this story than the surrender alone.

Key Takeaways

On February 21, 1746, Jacobite forces captured Inverness Castle after engineers undermined its foundations, compelling Major George Grant to surrender.
Government commander Loudoun had previously withdrawn most forces, leaving only a small, demoralized garrison tied to Grant and Ross interests.
Upon surrender, Jacobites seized muskets, powder, ammunition, and military provisions, directly bolstering their Highland campaign supplies.
The castle was systematically demolished after capture, eliminating any possibility of Government forces reoccupying the strategic position.
Inverness then served as Prince Charles Edward Stuart's primary operational headquarters until the Jacobite defeat at Culloden on April 16, 1746.

Inverness Under Government Control in Early 1746

In early 1746, Government forces held Inverness as a critical military and supply hub in the Scottish Highlands. You'd find roughly 750 men stationed there, maintaining control over the region's strategic northern approaches. The garrison's presence directly shaped civilian life, as soldiers moved through the town's streets and interacted with local trade networks daily.

Government commanders knew Inverness wasn't easy to defend indefinitely. When Jacobite pressure intensified, a council of war concluded that holding the town itself was impossible. Loudoun's forces withdrew, leaving Major George Grant's garrison inside the medieval castle as the final Government stronghold. The castle's fall would strip the Crown of its last foothold in Inverness, handing the Jacobites a significant regional base just weeks before Culloden. Similar dynamics played out in other conflicts of the era, where sustained pressure led opposing forces to withdraw and cede strategically valuable positions without prolonged last stands.

Inverness as a Strategic Prize in the Jacobite Rising

With Government resistance inside Inverness now reduced to a single garrison, the city's value to the Jacobites becomes clear. You're looking at a regional hub that controlled supply lines, military logistics, and the Highland economy across the northern territories. Whoever held Inverness shaped how resources and reinforcements moved through the Highlands.

For Prince Charles Edward Stuart's forces, capturing Inverness also meant leveraging clan diplomacy more effectively. Controlling the city sent a direct message to wavering clan leaders — the Jacobites weren't retreating. They were consolidating power in the north.

From February 1746 onward, Inverness became their primary operational base, supporting movements across the region. That position held until Culloden on April 16, 1746, when the rising collapsed and that strategic advantage vanished permanently. Much like the Mississippi River, which once defined the western border of the young United States before territorial expansion reshaped the nation's boundaries, Inverness represented a defining geographic line between Jacobite-held territory and Government control.

The Government Garrison Defending Fort George

Holding Fort George against the Jacobite advance fell to Major George Grant, who commanded a garrison of roughly 750 men drawn from local companies tied to the Grant and Ross interests.

You'd recognize these weren't seasoned regulars but locally recruited soldiers whose garrison morale wavered under mounting Jacobite pressure.

When Loudoun's broader Government forces withdrew from Inverness, Grant's men became the town's last line of defense.

A Government council of war ultimately judged that holding the town itself was impossible, surrendering it without contest. This decision preserved civilian treatment within Inverness, preventing unnecessary bloodshed among the population.

Grant's garrison then retreated into the castle, consolidating what little defensive strength remained while Jacobite forces tightened their grip on the surrounding area. Much like the way shifts in public opinion and mounting external pressures compelled major powers to abandon neutral positions and commit to decisive action, the garrison's untenable situation left Grant with little choice but to yield ground rather than court total destruction.

The Jacobite Approach to the Castle

Once Grant's garrison pulled back into the castle, the Jacobites moved quickly to press their advantage.

They didn't waste time celebrating their entry into Inverness. Instead, they sent highland scouts forward to study the fortification's layout and identify vulnerabilities before committing to a direct assault.

Through covert reconnaissance, Jacobite commanders discovered what they needed. The castle walls were too thick to breach conventionally, but the foundations told a different story. Engineers located a structural weakness they could exploit through mining, a method that would threaten to collapse the ramparts entirely from below.

You can see why this alarmed Grant's men. Facing the prospect of the ground literally disappearing beneath them, the garrison had little incentive to hold out. The psychological pressure alone made surrender the rational choice.

Mining the Walls: How the Jacobites Forced the Surrender

The Jacobites didn't need to break through the walls — they needed to break beneath them. Once they'd surveyed the castle, they identified a foundational weakness and began applying sapping techniques to exploit it. The threat alone proved devastating.

Here's what made their approach effective:

They bypassed the thick upper walls entirely
Sapping techniques targeted the foundation, where defenses were weakest
The threat of detonation served as psychological warfare against the garrison
Major Grant faced the prospect of the rampart collapsing beneath his men

You can see why Grant surrendered. He wasn't beaten by direct assault — he was beaten by the fear of what came next. On February 21, 1746, he handed over the castle, its stores, and its weapons.

Major Grant's Decision to Yield the Fort

Major Grant had no good options left. You can imagine his morale assessment that February morning—walls compromised, miners working beneath the foundations, and no relief force coming. Holding out longer meant watching his garrison die in a collapse he couldn't prevent.

The negotiation dynamics favored the Jacobites entirely. Grant understood that continued resistance served no tactical purpose. His men, drawn from local Grant and Ross companies, weren't regular soldiers willing to die for a lost position. Surrendering on terms protected them.

He yielded the fort on February 21, 1746. The Jacobites seized the stored weapons and supplies, then demolished the fortifications to prevent Government reuse. Grant's decision was rational, not cowardly—he'd simply run out of ground to stand on.

The Weapons and Stores the Jacobites Captured

Surrendering the fort handed the Jacobites something they badly needed: weapons and military stores stockpiled by the Government garrison. You can think of the capture as a resupply windfall arriving at a critical campaign moment. The haul strengthened Jacobite operational capacity heading into the spring of 1746.

The seized material included:

Captured muskets stripped from the surrendering garrison's armory
Seized powder and ammunition essential for sustaining field operations
Military provisions that supported Jacobite troops stationed in Inverness
Equipment and stores previously maintained for Government regional defense

Each item reduced pressure on Jacobite supply lines. They then demolished the fortifications, ensuring Government forces couldn't reclaim and rearm the position. The capture proved both a tactical and logistical gain before Culloden.

The Demolition of Fort George After the Surrender

Once the Jacobites stripped the fort of its weapons and stores, they turned to destroying it. They demolished the fortifications deliberately, denying Government forces any chance of reoccupying the position. You can understand the logic: leaving a functional stronghold behind would've invited a quick Government return.

Post surrender archaeology at the site reflects this systematic dismantling, with physical evidence confirming the deliberate nature of the destruction rather than incidental decay. The demolition didn't happen in isolation either. Local civilian impact was real and immediate, as residents watched a landmark structure come down around them, disrupting the town's familiar landscape.

With the fort gone, Inverness became a purely Jacobite operational base, a role it held until the catastrophic defeat at Culloden on April 16, 1746.

How the Siege Secured Inverness as the Jacobite Northern Base

With the castle gone and Government resistance inside Inverness extinguished, the Jacobites transformed the town into their primary northern base.

You can see how this control shaped their final campaign through four key advantages:

Supply lines ran through Inverness, feeding Jacobite forces across the Highlands
Local governance shifted to Jacobite administration, consolidating civilian authority
The town's geography blocked Government reinforcement from the north
Inverness served as Prince Charles's command headquarters until April 1746

These gains held for nearly two months before Culloden dismantled everything.

The siege hadn't just removed a garrison — it handed the Jacobites a functioning regional hub.

Without securing Inverness, sustaining Highland operations through the brutal winter of 1746 would've been nearly impossible.