Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum
   You are in: Museum of History >> Hall of North and South Americans >> Sir Banastre Tarleton





The Seven Flags of the New Orleans Tri-Centennial 1718-2018

For more information go to New Orleans 300th Birthday

 

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 and 1999. Virtualology.com warns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors and bias. We rely on volunteers to edit the historic biographies on a continual basis. If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor




Virtual American Biographies

Over 30,000 personalities with thousands of 19th Century illustrations, signatures, and exceptional life stories. Virtualology.com welcomes editing and additions to the biographies. To become this site's editor or a contributor Click Here or e-mail Virtualology here.



A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 





Click on an image to view full-sized

Sir Banastre Tarleton

TARLETON, Sir Banastre, bart., British soldier, born in Liverpool, 21 August, 1754 ; died in England, 23 January, 1833. He came to America with Lord Cornwallis in Sir Peter Parker's squadron in May, TARLETON 1776. He was major in Colonel Harcourt's regiment of dragoons, and accompanied Harcourt in the raid upon Baskingridge, New Jersey, which resulted in the capture of General Charles Lee, 13 December Little is heard of him during the next three years. In December, 1779, he accompanied the expedition of Sir Henry Clinton to South Carolina with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He raised and organized a troop known as the "British legion," or sometimes as "Tarleton's legion." It comprised both light infantry and cavalry, with a few fieldpieces, and was thus a miniature army in itself. It was made up partly of British regulars, partly of New York loyalists, and was further recruited by loyalists of South Carolina. At the head of this legion Tarleton soon made himself formidable in partisan warfare. In the difficult country of the Carolinas, with poor roads, frequent swamps or pine-barrens, and scant forage, he could move far more rapidly than the regular army, and his blows were delivered with sudden and crushing effect. After Clinton's capture of Charleston, 12 May, 1780, Colonel Buford's regiment, which had been marching toward Charleston, began its retreat to Virginia, but Tarleton, giving chase, overtook and overwhelmed it at Waxhaw Creek, near the border between the two Carolinas. Nearly all Buford's men were slaughtered, and thenceforth the phrase " Tarleton's quarter " was employed to denote wholesale butchery. At Camden, 15 August, Tarleton completed the ruin of General Gates's left wing. At Fishing Creek, 18 August, he surprised General Thomas Sumter, and utterly routed and dispersed his force; but at Blackstock's Hill, 20 November, Sumter returned the compliment, and severely defeated Tarleton. Early in January, 1781, Lord Cornwallis sent Tarleton, with 1,100 men, westward to the mountain country to look after General Daniel Morgan, who was threatening the British inland posts. At the Cowpens, 17 January, Morgan, with 900 men, awaited his attack and almost annihilated his force of 1,100 men in one of the most brilliant battles of the war. Tarleton accompanied Cornwallis during his campaigns in North Carolina and Virginia. In June, 1781, he made a raid upon Governor Jefferson's house at Monticello; but the governor, forewarned, had escaped to the mountains a few minutes before Tarleton's arrival. He remained with Cornwallis until the surrender at Yorktown. On returning to England he was promoted colonel. In 1790 he was elected to parliament from Liverpool, and was so popular that all the expenses of the election were borne by his friends. He was member of parliament in 1790-1806, and again in 1807-'12. In 1817 he reached the grade of lieu-tenant-general, and was made a baronet, 6 November, 1818. Ross, the editor of Cornwallis's "Correspondence," says (p. 44) that, in the house of commons, Tarleton " was notorious for his criticisms on military affairs, the value of which may be estimated from the fact that he almost uniformly condemned the Duke of Wellington." He published a "History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America " (London, 1787). This book has value in so far as it contains many documents that cannot elsewhere be obtained except with great labor. As a narrative it is spoiled by the vanity of the author, who distorts events for his self-glorification to a degree that is seldom paralleled in books of this character. The work was severely criticised by Colonel Roderick Mackenzie, "Strictures on Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton's History" (London, 1787). Mackenzie in turn was answered by Tarleton's second in command, Major George Hanger, afterward Lord Cole-rain, " Address to the Army in Reply to Colonel Mackenzie's Strictures" (London, 1787). The best-known portrait of Tarleton is the one by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1782), representing him in full uniform, with his foot on a cannon, from which the accompanying vignette is copied. Among the English colonel's American friends was Israel Halleck, a loyalist, father of Fitz-Greene, who was for a time a member of his military family, and between whom and Tarleton there was an enduring friendship.

Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM

Start your search on Sir Banastre Tarleton.


 

 


 


Unauthorized Site: This site and its contents are not affiliated, connected, associated with or authorized by the individual, family, friends, or trademarked entities utilizing any part or the subject's entire name. Any official or affiliated sites that are related to this subject will be hyper linked below upon submission and Evisum, Inc. review.

Copyright© 2000 by Evisum Inc.TM. All rights reserved.
Evisum Inc.TM Privacy Policy

Search:

About Us

 

 

Image Use

Please join us in our mission to incorporate The Congressional Evolution of the United States of America discovery-based curriculum into the classroom of every primary and secondary school in the United States of America by July 2, 2026, the nation’s 250th birthday. , the United States of America: We The People Click Here

 

Historic Documents

Articles of Association

Articles of Confederation 1775

Articles of Confederation

Article the First

Coin Act

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Monroe Doctrine

Northwest Ordinance

No Taxation Without Representation

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Mayflower Compact

Treaty of Paris 1763

Treaty of Paris 1783

Treaty of Versailles

United Nations Charter

United States In Congress Assembled

US Bill of Rights

United States Constitution

US Continental Congress

US Constitution of 1777

US Constitution of 1787

Virginia Declaration of Rights

 

Historic Events

Battle of New Orleans

Battle of Yorktown

Cabinet Room

Civil Rights Movement

Federalist Papers

Fort Duquesne

Fort Necessity

Fort Pitt

French and Indian War

Jumonville Glen

Manhattan Project

Stamp Act Congress

Underground Railroad

US Hospitality

US Presidency

Vietnam War

War of 1812

West Virginia Statehood

Woman Suffrage

World War I

World War II

 

Is it Real?



Declaration of
Independence

Digital Authentication
Click Here

 

America’s Four Republics
The More or Less United States

 
Continental Congress
U.C. Presidents

Peyton Randolph

Henry Middleton

Peyton Randolph

John Hancock

  

Continental Congress
U.S. Presidents

John Hancock

Henry Laurens

John Jay

Samuel Huntington

  

Constitution of 1777
U.S. Presidents

Samuel Huntington

Samuel Johnston
Elected but declined the office

Thomas McKean

John Hanson

Elias Boudinot

Thomas Mifflin

Richard Henry Lee

John Hancock
[
Chairman David Ramsay]

Nathaniel Gorham

Arthur St. Clair

Cyrus Griffin

  

Constitution of 1787
U.S. Presidents

George Washington 

John Adams
Federalist Party


Thomas Jefferson
Republican* Party

James Madison 
Republican* Party

James Monroe
Republican* Party

John Quincy Adams
Republican* Party
Whig Party

Andrew Jackson
Republican* Party
Democratic Party


Martin Van Buren
Democratic Party

William H. Harrison
Whig Party

John Tyler
Whig Party

James K. Polk
Democratic Party

David Atchison**
Democratic Party

Zachary Taylor
Whig Party

Millard Fillmore
Whig Party

Franklin Pierce
Democratic Party

James Buchanan
Democratic Party


Abraham Lincoln 
Republican Party

Jefferson Davis***
Democratic Party

Andrew Johnson
Republican Party

Ulysses S. Grant 
Republican Party

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican Party

James A. Garfield
Republican Party

Chester Arthur 
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland
Democratic Party

Benjamin Harrison
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland 
Democratic Party

William McKinley
Republican Party

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican Party

William H. Taft 
Republican Party

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic Party

Warren G. Harding 
Republican Party

Calvin Coolidge
Republican Party

Herbert C. Hoover
Republican Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic Party

Harry S. Truman
Democratic Party

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican Party

John F. Kennedy
Democratic Party

Lyndon B. Johnson 
Democratic Party 

Richard M. Nixon 
Republican Party

Gerald R. Ford 
Republican Party

James Earl Carter, Jr. 
Democratic Party

Ronald Wilson Reagan 
Republican Party

George H. W. Bush
Republican Party 

William Jefferson Clinton
Democratic Party

George W. Bush 
Republican Party

Barack H. Obama
Democratic Party

Please Visit

Forgotten Founders
Norwich, CT

Annapolis Continental
Congress Society


U.S. Presidency
& Hospitality

© Stan Klos

 

 

 

 


Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum