Quote:
Originally Posted by aNonnyMoose
He was a bit of a fan of the Mad Mitch approach to problems... "Piper to the front, shoot anything that moves!"...
So there may be a few vague similarities 
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Yes - that just about sums up that regiment which should never have been created in the first place as a result of the Cardwell (an Englishman) Reforms in 1881. i.e. the daft amalgamation between the 91st and 93rd regiments of foot.
The 91st (Argyleshire) Highlanders - who, incidentally recruited the greatest Argyll of all - Edward Dwelly, an Englishman with no Scottish connections whatsoever who nonetheless produced the splendid Dwelly Gaelic dictionary. And, absurdly, the 93rd (Sutherland) Highlanders, formed in 1799, geographically separated from the 91st by two counties, fought bravely for the imperial cause only to discover that their parents` houses had been burned over their heads in the Sutherland clearances as a reward. Few, thereafter, volunteered.
Imperialists in Edinburgh and London were focused only on the recruitment of cannon fodder.
Sutherland men never served with the A & S H. And, ever since National Service ended in the early `60s only about 1% of the battalion have been born in Argyll and virtually all of these few were the sons of monoglot English-speaking lowlanders who had settled in the backstreets of Oban, Lochgilphead and Campbelltown.
Gaelic-speaking Highland soldiers (pre-1850) behaved impeccably off duty. Contrast the behaviour of the present virtually all lowland representatives of the A & S H at their base at Canterbury! Note also, the personality of the poster who calls herself Polwarth who has posted more posts than is healthy in mind to these forums, someone who admits to being a member of a family who claim to be authentic Argyll and Sutherlands - yet someone who stubbornly refuses to learn or even to recognise Gaelic as being the original Argyll-Scots language.
General Jackson, another Englishman, was right. He finally took the necessary action to absorb the A & S H into one North British regiment where they belong.