Battle of the Yellow Ford The Battle of the Yellow Ford ( ) was fought in western County Armagh , Ulster , in Ireland , near the river Blackwater on 14 August 1598 , during the Nine Years War ( Ireland ) . It was fought between the Gaelic native Irish army under Aodh Mór Ó Néill and Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill and a crown expeditionary force from Dublin under Henry Bagenal . The crown forces were marching from Armagh town to re - supply a besieged fort on the Blackwater when they fell into an ambush and were routed with heavy losses . Background context of the battle . In 1597 , field commander Lord Burgh on behalf of the Dublin government had built a new fort on the river Blackwater five miles northwest of the government ' s garrisoned town Armagh . The river Blackwater defines the border between counties Armagh and Tyrone . The Blackwater fort was intended to facilitate later military excursions into county Tyrone . Soon after it was built the Earl of Tyrone ( O ' Neill ) laid siege to it . In 1598 , with the besieged garrison still intact but running precariously low on supplies , the Dublin government debated at length whether to abandon the fort , for the reason that its location was too far into O ' Neill ' s home territory to be sustainable . It was located only a few miles from the O ' Neill headquarters at Dungannon on the other side of the river . Commander Bagenal , who was very experienced at fighting Ulstermen , argued the fort should be re - supplied , and eventually won the argument in early August 1598 , and was appointed to lead the expedition . About 4 , 000 troops were assigned to the expedition , a large number in those days . According to the Annals of the Four Masters : " When O ' Neill had received intelligence that this great army was approaching him , he sent his messengers to O ' Donnell , requesting of him to come to his assistance against this overwhelming force of foreigners who were coming to his country . O ' Donnell proceeded immediately , with all his warriors , both infantry and cavalry , and a strong body of forces from Connacht , to assist his ally against those who were marching upon him . The Irish of all the province of Ulster also joined the same army , so that they were all prepared to meet the English before they arrived at Armagh . " Besides the forces raised from the Ulster clans , O ' Neill also had a substantial number of mercenaries in his pay , many of them from the Highlands of Scotland . Although historians don ' t have good records about the number of troops O ' Neill had on battle day , an estimate of roughly 5 , 000 troops is generally accepted ; i . e . , the number of O ' Neill troops was about the same and modestly larger than the number on the opposing side . Bagenal ' s troops marched from Dublin to the Armagh - town garrison without incident . But O ' Neill ' s troops had not been idle . They had dug trenches along and across parts of the road and countryside between Armagh town and the Blackwater fort , and blocked the pathways with felled trees , and set up brushwood breastworks , etc . The countryside had some bog and woodland , and was hilly with drumlins , but some cornfields were also in the area . In Armagh town , Bagenal was aware that the five miles separating him from the besieged fort were laced with ambush - supporting works . But in common with most other crown commanders of the day , and based on his own experience , he was confident that he would be victorious in any pitched battle with O ' Neill ' s forces . The main obstacle to true victory , in Bagenal ' s view , was that the enemy declined to engage in a decisive battle . As his troops set off down the road with drums beating , he expected the troops would be able to handle the hit - and - run tactics they would be subjected to . To sidestep some of the ambush works , the troops did not go down the main road ; they partly used another road and also used unpathed countryside . Bagenal , the son of Nicholas Bagenal , who had settled at Newry and later achieved high office , was army commander in chief ( marshall ) of Ulster for a decade ( beginning in 1587 as his father ' s deputy ) , in which role he had acquired extensive experience fighting against the Maguires and other " traitors " before the O ' Neill rebellion broke out . He had a bitter personal grudge against O " Neill , who some years earlier had eloped with his sister Mabel . He was intimately familiar with county Armagh territory . On this occasion he commanded 3500 footsoldiers , more than half of whom were Irishmen but also included a contingent of footsoldiers recently arrived in Dublin from England , and also a core group of footsoldiers from England that had more Irish experience . Begenal ' s footsoldiers were armed with the standard weapons of the day , pikes and muskets . Standard formation when marching through dangerous territory was musketeers in outside columns , able to fire out , and pikemen in the inside columns able to relieve the musketeers in the event of a sustained charge against the column . Begenal also had 350 cavalry and several pieces of artillery . O ' Neill ' s troops carried their traditional arms of swords , axes and javelins but also pikes and muskets , especially caliver s , which were a lighter and more portable version of the standard musket . O ' Neill had several English and Spanish military advisors in his pay , who trained his troops in the use of modern weaponry . Many Irish horsemen carried their spears over - arm , either thrusting or throwing them at close quarters in the traditional manner . The battle . The crown forces were organized in six regiments — two forward , two center , and two rear , and with cavalry at center . As soon as they left Armagh garrison , they were all harassed with musket fire and thrown spears from rebel forces concealed in the woods . As a result the different regiments became separated from one another as they paused to deal with the hit and run attacks . This problem was accentuated when one of their ox - drawn artillery pieces became stuck in the bog with a damaged wheel and a rear regiment got left behind guarding it as it was slowly coaxed through the bog . The regiment at the front of the march encountered a mile - long trench , 4 feet wide and 5 feet deep . The regiment succeeded in crossing this trench but then came under heavy attack from large forces and decided to retreat back behind the trench again , and it suffered significant losses during that retreat . This regiment in disarray then merged into the ranks of the other forward regiment . Standardly at the time , it was desirable for a marching army to take on a more compact , less elongated form when large enemy forces were present . At this point , Henry Bagenal was killed by a shot through the head . In post - mortems in Dublin , Bagenal was criticized for being near the vanguard of the march , instead of keeping himself in a more protected position near the center . Command of the army was taken over by Thomas Maria Wingfield . Further demoralising the crown troops and causing chaos , their gunpowder store exploded , apparently ignited accidentally by the fuse of a matchlock musket . Daunted , Wingfield decided to retreat to Armagh . But the commander of the forward part ( Evans ) either didn ' t get the command or refused to obey it , or was unable to execute an orderly retreat and judged it necessary to maintain his forward position . Anyway , seeing their enemy in confusion , the O ' Neill cavalry rushed at the head of the forward part , followed by swordsmen on foot . Crown troops in this part of the field ( at the " yellow ford " from which the battle gets its name ) were cut to pieces , and any wounded survivors left on the field after the battle were slain as well . The rest of the crown forces had to struggle their way back to the Armagh garrison . They reached it largely intact , but were harried all the way by the Irish . Crown forces lost about 900 killed at the battle . This included 18 " captains " or officers dead . Several hundred soldiers deserted to the rebels , and many hundreds more deserted back to their families , or went astray in the Armagh drumlins . Out of 4 , 000 soldiers who had set out from Armagh , just over 2 , 000 reached the town after the battle . Those who did reach Armagh were virtual prisoners inside . The cavalry broke out and dashed south escaping the Irish . After three days negotiations , it was agreed that the crown troops could leave Armagh as long as they left their arms and ammunition behind them . They were evacuated by sea from Newry to Dublin . O ' Neill ' s forces lost perhaps 200 to 300 killed in the battle , though sources for the number lost on O ' Neill ' s side are very scanty . In light of the battle ' s result , the court at London undertook to greatly and rapidly increase its military forces in Ireland ; and simultaneously many in Ireland who had been neutral on the sidelines undertook to support the rebellion . Thus the ultimate outcome of the battle was an escalation of the war . Sources and references . Footnotes :