page_title: Caroline Frederick Scott
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Caroline Frederick Scott / Career
caption_attribution_description: Braemar Castle
context_page_description: Lieutenant-Colonel Caroline Frederick Scott was a Scottish soldier and military engineer who served in the British Army before transferring to the East India Company.
  During the 1745 Jacobite Rising, he successfully defended Fort William in March 1746 and later conducted the search for Prince Charles after Culloden in April. He gained a reputation for atrocities and reprisals against Highlanders and has been described as one of the most notorious 'Redcoats' of the Rebellion.
  In October 1752, he transferred to the East India Company as Engineer General of their settlements in India, based in Calcutta, modern Kolkata; he died of fever in Madras, modern Chennai, on 12 May 1754.
context_section_description: In 1737, Scott was commissioned as a cornet in the Royal North British Dragoons, then based in England, before transferring to Guise's Regiment in 1741. During the 1739 to 1748 War of Jenkins' Ear with Spain, Guise's was sent to the West Indies where it took part in the attack of May 1741 on Cartagena de Indias. The expedition was a disaster, the assault force suffering losses of between 80-90%, mostly from dysentery and yellow fever. The survivors returned to England in December 1742; the unit was brought up to strength as a result of the 1740-1748 War of the Austrian Succession, then sent to Scotland for garrison duties.  
  Although technically an officer of Guise's, Scott served in Gibraltar as a military engineer under the Earl of Albemarle and when the 1745 Rising began, he was in Flanders with Cumberland. In July, detachments from Guise's secured the forts between Inverness and Fort William; two companies were captured at the Battle of Prestonpans in September, some of whom changed sides and were later executed as deserters. A letter written by his brother George mentions Scott was among the troops sent to Scotland after Prestonpans.  
  After withdrawing to Inverness in February 1746, the Jacobites captured Fort Augustus in early March, leaving Fort William as the last government-controlled position in the Great Glen. Cumberland appointed Scott commander and he arrived there on 15 March; like Fort Augustus, its defences had been neglected but it was far stronger and better sited. Control of the sea meant it could be resupplied, while naval vessels moored in Loch Linnhe gave the defenders more firepower than the besiegers. Jacobite commander Colonel Stapleton considered the position too strong to be taken with the forces available. Scott's diaries show he conducted an energetic and aggressive defence and the siege made little progress. At the end of March, Stapleton was ordered back to Inverness and on 3 April, the garrison discovered the Jacobites had gone, leaving guns and heavy equipment behind. Scott's defence was praised by the Duke of Newcastle in a letter to Cumberland on 17 April.
  Following the Battle of Culloden on 16 April, Scott led one of the parties searching for Prince Charles; on 21 June, he landed at Kilbride, on Skye, only just missing the Prince who was two miles away. In the course of this, he gained a reputation for brutality and excess; many stories about him were recorded by the antiquarian Alexander Carmichael in the 1860s. One alleges three Highlanders who surrendered to him were drowned in a mill flume at Lochoy, although there is no direct confirmation of this.
  In 2011, Scott was included on a list of alleged war criminals by a group seeking an apology for crimes committed after Culloden. Why he remains so notorious is unclear, since destruction and theft of property and livestock was common practice on both sides. The repression that followed Culloden reflected a widespread mood in the army and was conducted by senior commanders like James Wolfe, Henry Hawley and John Huske. Colonel Whitefoord, Sir Walter Scott's model for the heroic Hanoverian Colonel Talbot in Waverley, wrote suspected rebels were 'immediately put to death...their houses plundered and burnt, cattle drove, ploughs and tackle destroyed.' One reason for this was a widespread perception among government officials and Jacobites another landing was imminent.
  However, Scott clearly had a strong dislike of Highlanders and Jacobites, as demonstrated by his treatment of Isabel Haldane. Her husband was Charles Stewart of Ardshiel, who led the Stewart of Appin regiment at Culloden and was exiled as a result. In a letter of complaint to John Campbell, Earl of Loudon, Isabel records Scott's men cut down her fruit trees, removed her furniture, food stores and livestock. They also dismantled her house, the materials later being sold at Fort William for £400.
  In November 1746, Scott was promoted major, replacing his colleague Hugh Wentworth, dismissed for surrendering Fort Augustus. Albemarle was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Scotland and 
caption: Braemar Castle, one of the strongpoints established to control the Highlands; Scott commanded here until the end of 1749
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