The British lieutenant colonel gazed intently down the length of the grassy field. There was a solid line of Rebel infantry down there, but none were wearing uniforms because they were just militia. He knew what would happen. He and his men would go at them at a gallop. At about 70 yards the militia would fire, and he would lose a handful of men and horses. The militia would then drop the butts of their muskets to the ground so they could reload, but before that task could be completed, his dragoons would be among the Rebels, sabers slashing.
It would be a massacre, as usual.
Tugging his green uniform jacket into a comfortable position, Banistre Tarleton turned to his bugler and said, “Sound the charge.”
On battlefield after battlefield, both in the northern theater and in the South, the dragoon troops under Banistre Tarleton carved their way to victory with the saber, splashing blood across the pages of the history of the Revolution. No other soldiers on either side earned so high a reputation for effective fighting or so low a name for viciousness. Was Tarleton really the meanest man in America?
Banistre Tarleton was born to a middle-class family in England, but his father had earned a fair fortune and was able to send his sons to a university. Although Tarleton enrolled to study law, he was much more interested in gambling, drinking, and visiting with ladies than he was in studying. Leaving the university without a degree, Tarleton inherited the large sum of 5,000 pounds sterling from his father’s estate. In a short time he had gambled away the entire sum and, to have some means of living, purchased a commission as an ensign, a low-ranking officer, in the fashionable First Dragoon Guards. Not much attracted to the routine of garrison life, Tarleton volunteered for service in America on December 25, 1775.
Almost as soon as he landed in the rebellious colonies, Tarleton began to make a name for himself. On December 13, 1776, he was in the party of cavalry that captured Gen. Charles Lee, the commander of a major part of the Continental Army. Throughout 1777 he rode at the head of his unit as the dragoons scouted and fought with Washington’s Patriot army. Following the capture of Philadelphia, Tarleton was always to be found at the center of parties and balls. All the while, the Patriots shivered and trained in their barren camp at Valley Forge.
In the spring of 1778, the British found the Patriot army to be their equal in battle, but Tarleton’s star still shone bright. In the reorganization of the British forces following the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, Tarleton was promoted to the staff position of brigade major.
As the British army settled into New York City—for the remainder of the war, it turned out—Tarleton was authorized to recruit a unit of cavalry from among Americans loyal to the Crown. Soon after this, he was allowed to recruit some light infantry companies that, combined with his cavalry, became the “British Legion.” Except for a few officers, all the men in this unit were from America.
The war around New York City did not offer much for Tarleton and his men. In 1779 his unit became a part of the British force sent south to try to win the war in an area that had seen but little fighting. The arrival of the British Legion and its commander in the South was not auspicious. The unit had no horses; all 300 of their mounts had died aboard ship during transit.
HENRY LAURENS of South Carolina was captured by the British while traveling to Holland as an ambassador for the Patriot cause. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London for several months. After the surrender of the British army at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, Laurens was exchanged for Lord Cornwallis, the commander of the surrendered army.
As soon as he and his men took horses from Patriot farmers, Tarleton and the legion began to establish a bloody reputation. There had been almost no fighting in the South, and the Patriot forces there lacked the combat experience of their northern counterparts. Tarleton won some easy victories against these raw troops. The defining moment of Tarleton’s career came on May 29, 1780, at a settlement called Waxhaws on the North Carolina-South Carolina border. Col. Abraham Buford’s regiment of Virginia Continentals was escorting Gov. Archibald Rutledge of South Carolina, who had barely escaped capture at Charleston. At Waxhaws, Buford was brought to battle. Offered a chance to surrender, the Virginian refused. Tarleton then charged, and many Continentals were killed after throwing down their muskets and asking for “quarter,” or mercy. “Tarleton’s Quarter” became a chilling battle cry meaning “take no prisoners.” Tarleton pointed out, as his defenders have done since, that having refused to surrender when called on, the Patriot forces had given up all rights to protection under the existing laws of war. When a defending force chose to continue fighting after being summoned to stop, the attacking force was not then required to take prisoners. Although the fine points of the law might be on Tarleton’s side, the Patriots saw only a bloody-handed man who was now fair game for anyone who could get him in the sights of a rifle.
After the Waxhaws fight, Tarleton and his men became a terror to the Patriot forces. Cavalry was a very effective arm of the military during the Revolutionary War because of the limited range of infantry weapons. The cavalry was not in range of musket fire until a distance of about 80 yards was reached. Once the cavalry passed that mark, the infantry could fire only one shot per soldier before the cavalry covered the remaining distance, catching the infantry with unloaded muskets. If the infantry had proper training and discipline, and were armed with bayonets, the foot soldiers could still defend themselves with empty muskets. But the Patriot forces confronting Tarleton had none of these things.
Following the Battle of Camden, Tarleton again pursued the defeated Patriots, wreaking havoc. He and his men fought numerous skirmishes with guerrilla leaders Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter, but these engagements eventually proved to be Tarleton’s undoing. The more the Patriots fought, the more skilled at arms they became. When the Battle of Cowpens was fought, the Patriots’ fighting skills were equal to or better than those of Tarleton’s men. As the British moved north from the Carolinas into Virginia, following their defeats at Cowpens and Kings Mountain, Tarleton and the British Legion still led the way, they still won battles, but they also suffered defeats. Their skill as fighters was still strong and their use of the saber no less fearsome, but after Cow-pens the Patriots were no longer terrified of either.
The end of his American career came for Tarleton at Yorktown. As Lord Cornwallis waited in vain for rescue by the Royal Navy, Tarleton was sent across to the north side of the York River to keep the Patriot and French forces from getting too close to the British rear. While out on a foraging expedition for corn, Tarleton was attacked by a squadron of French cavalry and was wounded. On October 19, 1781, along with the rest of the British forces, Tarleton surrendered, giving himself up to the French. He feared the Americans would give him “Tarleton’s Quarter.” They thought Banistre Tarleton was the meanest man in America.
HENRY LEE III
“LIGHT HORSE HARRY”
JANUARY 29, 1756–
MARCH 25, 1818
Henry Lee III was born to a wealthy Virginia family and entered Princeton University at age fourteen. When he graduated, war with Britain was already at hand and Lee made preparations to play a part. When George Washington was named commander of the Patriot forces at Boston, Lee led a mixed unit of cavalry and infantry to join the army. Almost immediately he was making a name for himself, raiding British supply depots and scouting to keep Washington informed of British movements. As the leader of a highly mobile unit, (Light Horse) Lee was often in close combat with the enemy, and these clashes made him a well-liked officer. His combat ability was proven at the Battle of Paulus Hook and he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Lee fought for two years in the southern colonies, often engaging in raids against the British, and was present at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered. With peace at hand Lee left the army for his plantation. He was recalled to action by President Washington in 1798, and was promoted to the rank of major general. He then served in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the author of the resolution honoring Washington when the first president died, in which Lee called him “First in war; first in peace; first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Beginning in 1801, Lee made some unwise business deals that sent him into bankruptcy and, for a time, to debtors’ prison. While in prison, Lee wrote Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, a book still considered a major source of information about the war. Out of prison, Lee was attacked by a mob when he defended an unpopular newspaper editor. He left his family to attempt to recuperate in the West Indies and died on the return trip. Surviving him was his eleven-year-old son, Robert Edward Lee.