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General Sir Banastre Tarleton by Sir Joshua Reynolds
(August 21, 1754–January 25, 1833)
English Army Officer
Tarleton was, unquestionably, the American Revolution’s most talented exponent of mounted warfare. This dashing figure came to epitomize speed, decisive action, and, more often than not, victory. However, his talents were eclipsed by wanton cruelty, and Tarleton gained infamy throughout the South as “Bloody Ban.”
Banastre Tarleton was born in Liverpool, England, on August 21, 1754, the son of a prominent politician. Educated in private schools and Oxford, he was lax in his studies and displayed infinitely more interest in gambling. Tarleton’s debts were threatening to overwhelm him when, in April 1775, his mother purchased a cornet’s commission in the King’s Dragoon Guards. Surprisingly, this listless wastrel took immediately to military life, and after a few months of service he volunteered to fight in the American Revolution. In the spring of 1776 he sailed with the squadron of Adm. Sir Peter Parker to Charleston, South Carolina, as part of reinforcements destined for Gen. Henry Clinton. When the attack failed, Tarleton accompanied Clinton back to New York to serve under Gen. William Howe. He was subsequently assigned to the 16th Light Dragoons, one of two regular cavalry regiments serving in America. On December 13, 1776, Tarleton distinguished himself in a raid upon Basking Ridge that captured American Gen. Charles Lee. After continuous skirmishing and outpost work, he rose to regimental brigade major in January 1777 and the following year transferred to the 79th Regiment of Foot as a captain. Tarleton by this time had acquired a reputation for dash, effective reconnaissance, and decisive action—all attributes of a good cavalry leader. For these reasons, he gained a promotion to lieutenant colonel of the newly raised British Legion. This was a mixed light dragoon/light infantry force, specializing in scouting, quick movement, and rapid deployment. It was distinct among army units in that the troops were clad in green uniforms and recruited almost entirely from Loyalist Americans. Furthermore, Tarleton’s aggressive offensive spirit proved infectious to all ranks, and he molded it into one of the best offensive units on either side. So closely identified did it become with its leader that the Legion was more commonly known as Tarleton’s Green Horse.
In December 1777, Tarleton’s Legion shipped south as part of General Clinton’s expedition against Charleston. As the city was besieged, he scoured the countryside to prevent militia reinforcements from reaching the defenders. He also frequently operated in concert with two other talented partisan leaders, Patrick Ferguson and John Graves Simcoe. By this time Tarleton had perfected his tactical formula: accurate reconnaissance coupled with a sudden, relentless assault against an unprepared enemy. In quick succession, the British Legion attacked and wiped out three larger American detachments at Monck’s Corner (April 14, 1780), Lenud’s Ferry (May 6), and the Waxhaws (May 29). It was during this last skirmish that the British Legion gained lasting notoriety by slaughtering soldiers trying to surrender. Tarleton became forever branded as “Bloody Ban,” and his atrocities were denounced as “Tarleton’s quarter.” But his ruthlessness on the battlefield, coupled with the terror it inspired, dissuaded militia from being where they were needed most.
After Charleston’s surrender, the British Legion accompanied the advance of Gen. Charles Cornwallis to Camden, South Carolina. Meanwhile, an American army under Gen. Horatio Gates marched south to confront Cornwallis, and their armies collided at Camden on August 16, 1780. Gates was completely defeated, and Tarleton gained additional laurels by pursuing the fugitives for 20 miles, sabering those he caught, and capturing all their baggage and artillery. Subsequent British movements were then hampered by partisan forces under Gen. Thomas Sumter, and Cornwallis tasked Tarleton with eliminating the problem. After two weeks of maneuvering and scouting, the Legion surprised Sumter’s larger force at Fishing Creek, South Carolina, on August 18, 1780, and wiped it out. Sumter barely escaped with his life. Tarleton was then unleashed against guerrillas under Col. Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” who artfully dodged the British thunderbolt by withdrawing deep into the swampland. Within weeks, Sumter had regrouped and reformed his forces and was hitting British supply lines again. The hard-charging Tarleton caught up with him at Blackstocks, South Carolina, on November 20, 1780, defeated and wounded Sumter in a hard-fought battle, and forced his command to scatter. It seemed no militia force—then the only organized American resistance in the south—could resist this cruel, impetuous, dandy. But far from being intimidated, the population began using Tarleton’s quarter as a rallying cry against him.
The 26-year-old Tarleton was by now firmly established as Cornwallis’s main striking force, and he continued as a personal favorite of that aggressive officer. The general sought to follow up his success with an immediate invasion of North Carolina, but the death of Col. Patrick Ferguson at King’s Mountain forced him to withdraw. By fall, Cornwallis was ready to resume his march, especially seeing that a new commander, Gen. Nathaniel Greene, had arrived and was consolidating his shattered forces. With the British close behind, Greene took the unprecedented step of splitting his army into two divisions, dispatching one under Gen. Daniel Morgan to operate independently. Cornwallis did the same and sent Tarleton in hot pursuit of Morgan’s band with slightly more than 1,000 men. The two sides seemed evenly matched. On January 17, 1781, the Americans awaited the British onslaught at an open field known as Hannah’s Cowpens. Acknowledging the unsteady nature of his forces, Morgan resorted to a brilliant tactical expedient. His army was arrayed into three lines: The first two consisted of militia, who were ordered to fire only two volleys at close range and then retire; the third line consisted of the veteran Delaware and Maryland Continentals and a cavalry squadron under Col. William Washington, upon whose fate the battle rested. With his back to the Broad River, retreat was impossible, but Morgan was counting on Tarleton’s customary impetuosity.
As expected, the British made contact with Morgan outposts around seven o’clock in the morning, and a preliminary exchange of gunfire toppled 15 Legion dragoons from their saddles. Tarleton came galloping up soon after; without pausing to reconnoiter Morgan’s position, he fed his infantry into a direct frontal assault. The militia fired and fell back as planned, inflicting some losses. The British were then totally halted by the stand of Morgan’s Continentals, who after firing several volleys feigned a retreat. The Legion, so accustomed to seeing the backs of their opponents, immediately broke ranks and began a disorderly pursuit, which was suddenly halted when Morgan’s men inexplicably halted, turned, and fired into their ranks. At this juncture the militia appeared from behind a rise and attacked one flank while Washington’s cavalry assailed the another. Tarleton tried desperately to reform his ranks, but the Legion dissolved into a mass of fugitives and fled. Washington, saber drawn, managed to exchange a few cuts with the surprised British commander before he escaped and took off, hotly pursued by the victors. Lasting only an hour, Cowpens was a minor tactical masterpiece that cost the British 500 dead and captured—and Tarleton his reputation. Morgan’s losses in this stunning reversal of fortune were only 12 killed and 60 wounded.
British officers had long regarded Tarleton as too cocky for his own good; now crestfallen, he tendered his resignation. Cornwallis refused and then advanced against Greene, hoping to catch him before he could unite his forces with Morgan. He barely failed in this task, and on March 6, 1781, his 1,900 men engaged a force nearly three times its size at Guilford Courthouse. After a hard-fought action, the British kept the field—but with staggering losses. Tarleton, as usual, was in the thick of the fray and lost two fingers. The British then retreated into Virginia, where the brash horseman was directed to conduct a series of lighting raids. One of these nearly captured Governor Thomas Jefferson at Charlottesville on June 4, 1781. At length, Tarleton was recalled by Cornwallis and joined the main army, then entrenched at Yorktown. Throughout the siege of that place, he commanded the forces on the Gloucester side of the river and conducted many exciting, but ultimately fruitless, forays. He was taken prisoner following Cornwallis’s surrender there in October and paroled. While awaiting exchange, Tarleton frequently protested the fact that American officers never invited him to dinner. These complaints would have amused the southern militiamen, who would just as soon have seen him hanged by the neck.
Tarleton returned to England in 1782 and was greeted as a hero. He became a lieutenant colonel of dragoons, and between 1786 and 1806 he served intermittently in Parliament. Over the years Tarleton accrued additional promotions, rising to major general in 1794, but he never again held a combat command. He continued living as a compulsive gambler, with extravagant tastes in clothing, food, and women, until marrying Susan Bertie, the daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, in 1798. This maneuver had a greater effect on him than Cowpens, for he exchanged his florid lifestyle for that of a respectable country gentleman. In May 1820, Tarleton was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath at the behest of King George IV, a lifelong friend. He died at Leintwardine on January 25, 1833, largely forgotten in his own country—but infamous in the annals of American military history.
Bibliography
Babits, Lawrence E. A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998; Bass, Robert D. The Green Dragoon. New York: Holt, 1957. Carman, W. Y. “Banastre Tarleton and the British Legion.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 62 (1984): 127–131; Edgar, Walter B. Partisans and Redcoats: The American Revolution in the South Carolina Backcountry. New York: Morrow, 2001; Fleming, Thomas. “The Cowpens.” MHQ 1, no. 4 (1989): 56–67; Hayes, John T. Massacre: Tarleton vs Buford, May 29, 1780; Lee vs Pyle, February 23, 1781. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Saddlebag Press, 1997; Hayes, John T. Prelude to Glory: Early Operations of Britain’s Two Most Famous Cavalrymen of the American Revolution, 1775–1783. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Saddlebag Press, 1996; Ketchum, Richard M., ed. “New War Letters of Banastre Tarleton.” New York State Historical Society Quarterly 51 (1967): 61–81; Maass, John. “To Disturb the Assembly: Tarleton’s Charlottesville Raid and the British Invasion of Virginia in 1781.” Virginia Cavalcade 49 (Autumn 2000): 148–157; Pancake, John S. This Destructive War: The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780–1782. University, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985; Scotti, Anthony J. “Brutal Virtue: The Myth and the Reality of Banastre Tarleton.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of South Carolina, 1996; Tarleton, Banastre. A History of the Campaign of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America. London: F. Cadell, 1900.
