General Sir Banastre Tarleton, 1st Baronet, (21 August 1754 – 15 January 1833) was a British military officer and politician. He was the leader of the British Legion during the southern campaign of the American War of Independence.
After promotion to lieutenant colonel, he later served in Portugal and held commands in Ireland and England, eventually reaching the rank of General in his later years.
After returning to Great Britain in 1781, Tarleton was elected to Parliament as a member for Liverpool. He served as a prominent Whig politician for 20 years.
Banastre Tarleton was the third of seven children born to merchant John Tarleton and his wife in Liverpool, England. His birthplace at 7 Water Street is marked by a plaque at the corner with Fenwick Street (53.4065°N 2.9922°W / 53.4065; -2.9922). Tarleton's father had prospered in the West Indian sugar trade and also managed several slaving vessels. Tarleton’s & Backhouse became one of the largest import-export companies in Britain. The family had trade interests throughout America and dealt in many cargoes, including slaves.
Tarleton was educated at Oxford, attending University College. He was further educated at Middle Temple, London, which served as a college for the education of lawyers during this period.
In 1775 he purchased a commission as a cornet (junior cavalry officer) in the 1st Dragoon Guards (effective from 2 May 1775). He proved to be a gifted horseman and leader of troops, working up to lieutenant colonel without having to purchase any further commissions.
American War of Independence/American Revolution
In December 1775, at the age of 21, the volunteer-soldier Banastre Tarleton sailed from Cork to North America, where the American War of Independence (1775–1783) had broken out. Tarleton sailed with Lord Cornwallis as part of an expedition to capture the southern city of Charleston, South Carolina. After that expedition failed at the Battle of Sullivan's Island (28 June 1776), Tarleton went north to join the main British Army under command of General William Howe, in New York.
Under the command of Colonel William Harcourt, Tarleton, as a cornet, was part of a scouting party sent to gather intelligence on the movements of General Charles Lee in New Jersey. On 13 December 1776, Tarleton surrounded a house in Basking Ridge, and forced Lee, still in dressing gown, to surrender, as he threatened to burn down the house. General Lee was taken to New York as a prisoner of war. He later was used in an exchange of prisoners.
In the course of the colonial war in North America, Cornet Tarleton's campaign service during 1776 earned him the position of brigade major at the end of the year. He was promoted to captain on 13 June 1778. Late in 1777, Tarleton was in action at Brandywine, the capture and defence of Germantown, and the capture of Philadelphia and at other battles in 1778. One such battle, in 1778, was an attack upon a communications outpost on Signal Hill in Easttown Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, which was guarded by troops commanded by Capt. Henry Lee III, of the Continental Army, who repulsed the British attack.
After becoming commander of the British Legion, a force of American Loyalist cavalry and light infantry, Tarleton went to South Carolina at the beginning of 1780. There, the capture of Charleston was the first step in regaining control of the southern provinces. The Legion supported Sir Henry Clinton in the operations which culminated in the British capture of Charleston, earning Tarleton praise in Clinton's despatch.
On 29 May 1780, Colonel Tarleton, with a force of 149 mounted soldiers, overtook a detachment of 350 to 380 Virginia Continentals, led by Colonel Abraham Buford. Buford rejected Tarleton's invitation to surrender and continued marching, only ordering his troops to surrender after incurring significant casualties. Nonetheless, fighting continued until 113 soldiers of Buford's detachment were killed, 203 were captured, and 150 were severely wounded. The British army casualties were 5 soldiers killed and 12 soldiers wounded.. The affair is known as the Battle of Waxhaw Creek.
During that time, Patriots used the phrase "Tarleton's quarter" (shooting after surrender) as meaning "no quarter offered".
Forty years later, William Dobein James asked Robert Brownfield, a surgeon’s mate of the wartime Second South Carolina Regiment, for a description of the battle. Brownfield's account, published as an appendix to A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion, said that Colonel Buford raised a white flag of surrender, "expecting the usual treatment sanctioned by civilized warfare". When Buford called for quarter, Colonel Tarleton's horse was shot with a musket ball, trapping him underneath and enraging the Loyalist soldiers who believed their commander had been shot. The Loyalist troops attacked the Virginians and "commenced a scene of indiscriminate carnage never surpassed by the ruthless atrocities of the most barbarous savages"; in the aftermath, the British Legion soldiers purportedly killed wounded soldiers where they lay.
Reports of these atrocities motivated Whig-leaning colonials to support the American Revolution. On 7 October 1780, at the Battle of Kings Mountain, South Carolina, the Overmountain Men (rebel militia), having heard of the slaughter at Waxhaw Creek, killed American Loyalists who had surrendered after a sniper killed their British commanding officer, Maj. Patrick Ferguson.
In South Carolina, Tarleton's British Legion were harried by Francis Marion, an American militia commander who practiced guerrilla warfare against the British, in order to deny resupply of food and horses, cause attrition and reduce reconnoitering. Throughout the campaigns, Tarleton was unable to capture Marion or thwart his operations. Marion's local popularity among anti-British South Carolinians ensured continual aid and comfort for the American cause. In contrast, Colonel Tarleton alienated the colonial citizens with arbitrary confiscations of cattle and food stocks.
At Camden, Tarleton's cavalry delivered the coup de grace against the Continental army when they charged into the rear of the Continental line. The Continental troops broke and fled, and were pursued for more than twenty miles. All the baggage and ordnance of the Continental army were captured, earning Tarleton a commendation from Cornwallis.
On 22 August, he was promoted to major in the 79th Regiment of Foot (Royal Liverpool Volunteers). He defeated Thomas Sumter at Fishing Creek, also called Catawba Fords, but was less successful when he encountered the same general at Blackstock's Farm in November 1780.