eight
o'clock at night
Consequently many straggled away to Inverness and other places in search of food . Lord Cromarty , with the regiments under his command , were absent , so that barely five thousand men were mustered in the ranks . At a council of war Lord George Murray suggested that a night surprise should be made on the duke 's camp at Nairn , and as this was the prince 's own plan it was unanimously agreed to . Before , however , the straggling troops could be collected it was eight o'clock at night . Nairn was twelve miles distant , and the men , weakened by privation and hunger , marched so slowly across the marshy ground that it was two o'clock in the morning before the head of the columns arrived within four miles of the British camp , while the rear was still far away , and many had dropped out of the ranks from fatigue . It was now too late to hope that a surprise could be effected before daylight , and the army retraced its steps to Culloden Moor . Worn out and exhausted as they were , and wholly without supplies of provisions , Lord George Murray and the other military officers felt that the troops could not hope to contend successfully against a vastly superior army , fresh , well fed , and supported by a strong force of artillery , on the open ground , and he proposed that the army should retire beyond the river Bairn , and take up a position there on broken ground inaccessible to cavalry .