On the 17th the Marshal continued his march to Hexham, where he arrived, with the first line, about four in the afternoon, but the rear of the army did not come up till near midnight. Having received intelligence that Carlisle had surrendered, he resolved to march back to Newcastle; but, the weather continuing bad, and the roads become in a manner impassable, he did not arrive there with his army till the 16th; and, even then, the forces under his command were so exhausted by fatigue, and lamed by travelling, that, if it had not been for the great care taken of them by the people of Newcastle, they must have been, not only disheartened, but disqualified for service.
In the meantime the Duke of Cumberland’s army was forming in Staffordshire; for, upon the approach of the Rebels, it was resolved that his Royal Highness should be sent down to command the forces in that part of the kingdom; and he arrived at Litchfield on the 28th of November.
Towards the latter end of the month, the army, under the command of Marshal Wade, began to move; the cavalry having reached Darlington and Richmond by the 25th. On the 29th the infantry was at Persbridge, whence he proposed to march to Wetherby, and there canton the whole army in the adjacent villages; looking upon this as the most convenient station either for distressing the enemy, should they attempt to retire, or for cooperating with the forces of his Royal Highness, as occasion should render necessary.
On the 8th of December the Marshal held a council of war, at Ferry-bridge, to consider of the most effectual means for cutting off the Highlanders on their retreat; and, in this council it was resolved to march directly to Wakefield and Halifax into Lancashire, as the most likely way of intercepting the rebels. Having arrived at Wakefield on the 10th, and having advice that the main body of the rebels was at Manchester, and their van-guard moving from thence towards Preston, and finding that it was now impossible to come up with them, he judged it unnecessary to fatigue the forces by hard marches, and, therefore, detaching Major General Oglethorpe, on the 11th, with the cavalry under his command, he began the march, with the rest of the forces to Newcastle. On the 13th a great body of the horse and dragoons under Oglethorpe arrived at Preston, having marched a hundred miles in three days over roads naturally bad, and at that time almost impassable with snow and ice; “which,” says the Historian, “was a noble testimony of zeal and spirit, especially in the new raised forces.”