In short, technologically the Jacobites were not so far behind the British army of the eighteenth century. No doubt there exists a popular romantic portrayal of the late-Jacobite military during the Rising of 1745-6 as the 'noble savage', the ferocious and rebellious Highlander with no shoes or sense, wielding farm implements and other 'middle-aged weaponry' in battle. This image is informed a great deal by propagandized broadsides and prints from the period and was accelerated through the Walter Scott and John Prebble eras to leave us with a distinct but mythologized version of the average person who fought for the Jacobite cause. Modern scholarship has come a long way in refuting this image using reliable primary-source material and much more sober analysis.
I will leave the specific research for you to enjoy, but I can address the technology issue briefly, along with some suggestions for further reading. Based upon recent archaeological surveys of bullet scatter patterns on the field and estimations of weaponry and materiel either surrendered or otherwise recovered from Jacobite units, many soldiers were armed with French, Spanish, and English guns at Culloden and likely around the same number of shots were fired by both sides during the short engagement. Broadswords were also extremely common in the Jacobite army, as were dirks and targes – but guns were the mainstay. Troops were regularly drilled and otherwise trained by veteran Scots and Irish officers who had experience fighting in French units on the Continent, and in fact around 7% of the Jacobite army at Culloden was made up of 'regular' French and Irish troops on loan from Louis XV. Some farm implements and other tools inevitably made it into battle, but scythes and Lochaber axes are mostly relics from earlier Jacobite actions 1689-1715. It is telling that allegedly not a single axe was recovered from the battlefield at Culloden.
At its peak the Jacobite army employed around eighty-five artillery pieces, but by Culloden that number had dwindled to about a dozen. Added to this were a shortage of horses, limbers for transport, and enough trained gunners to keep everything in good working order.
Charles Edward Stuart's force was essentially an army of non-regulars conscripted on the fly without the proper supply, logistics, and time to establish itself as a long-term threat to the administration of George II and the British military – arguably the most capable eighteenth-century army in Europe. It engaged in a war of attrition and highly mobile activity using a broad base of recruits who were unsupported from a safe or defensible domain. They certainly were not all Highlanders – not even half of the army was made up of clan units at its peak – and Jacobitism was truly an international movement that, under a number of distinct causes, stood in opposition to the established Hanoverian regime and was supported by Irish, French, Scots, English, Spanish, Welsh, and Flemish men and women both civilian and martial.
What does this information reveal about the popular story of the modern British state against a backward, undisciplined band of Highland rabble? I would say this definitively shreds it. You can read much more about these points and more in the works below.
You also might wish to take a look through my doctoral thesis, 'Spines of the Thistle: The Popular Constituency of the Jacobite Rising in 1745-6', which specifically deals with the plebeian participants, and includes themes of recruitment, motivation, and demographics. The thesis is available for free download in the University of St Andrews digital repository.
All the best in your continued research!
With best wishes,
Dr Darren S. Layne
Creator and Curator, The Jacobite Database of 1745
(recently of the Institute for Scottish Historical Research, University of St Andrews)