The called it a massacre but it wasn't. It was a horrible atrocity, yes, but you can't say that killing 39 people out of 200 is a Massacre.
Actually what happened was that they made sure that the families escaped over the hills. they fired shots in the air, they purposely did not block the escape routes. but the Clan Campbell got the blame just the same.
The beauty of the Valley is renowned, the high steep sided mountains, the river Coe running as it has done for 40 millions years have led to Glencoe being voted as one of the top Wonders of Scotland. There used to be small farmsteads here and there up the Valley. They were run by the Clan McDonald three hundred years ago. Not any more. You can rent many little cottage and chalets for your Summer vacations here. Young people play to-day when once people were killed in their beds.
Glencoe can be savage. The wind can get to storm force in a minute. You can get up to 15 inches of rain a year, that’s a tropical rain forest level. Climbers die every year on the rocks.
And, three hundreds years ago, a government inspired act of total savagery attempted to clear out all the clan people in Glencoe for all time. Soldiers were to kill the men in their beds, as they lay sleeping in the middle of the night.
The Massacre of Glencoe has gone down in history as one of the most appalling acts of genocide in the history of Britain.
The worst crime you can commit in Scotland is not just a simple Murder, it is a Murder Under Trust. This is when somene befriends you, gives you shelter, shares food with you, and then you muder them.
In the Scottish Highlands their code of conduct - even to-day - does not allow them to avoid giving help to travellers.
The facts
The atrocity occurred at 5.00am on February 13, 1692 when some of the 135 men in the Argyll regiment, who had been billeted for 11 days with McDonald families in the little Glencoe communities and receiving hospitality, turned on them after receiving orders to kill all the MacDonald men below the age of 70. The regiment were not all Campbells. Only a few were professional soldiers.
The Captain of the troop, Robert Campbell of Glenlyon who was 60, seems to have been deliberately chosen as a shambles of a man by all accounts, a drunkard, who had recently taken his army commission to help to clear his large gambling debts. He discovered his mission only the night before, when he was given his orders, by a Major Robert Duncanson. This major seems to be a key figure who kept well out of it himself. He had command of more troops who were billeted at what is to-day’s Ballachulish House. Glenlyon was promised that the Duncanson troops would be in support, but in the event they did not set out until 7.00am with more than an hours trek ahead of them. Duncanson clearly knew exactly what he was doing, He saw to it that Glenlyon would carry the blame. Glenlyon died later in the same year.
More telling facts
The killings began with gunfire. That is a sure way of the soldiers warning everyone up the glen that trouble is about. That was clearly deliberate. Swords and daggers would have been far quieter and more effective and would have seen off half of the targets before the MacDonalds were roused. They were at close quarters, for goodness’ sake.
It is thought that there were about 200 McDonald men in Glencoe. The total population was a little bigger than it is to-day, but more spread out. Yet only 39 were killed. After a surprise attack before dawn, as they all lay sleeping in their beds, with soldiers outside, in their yards and they succeeded in killing only 39? If the soldiers killed three McDonalds each, then only 13 soldiers were needed to do the job. They probably just used the usual psychos and case-hardened non-commissioned officers to do it. The rest must have fired into the air.