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Nowadays, there are a fairly standard set of anecdotes told about Tarleton, and any modern book on the Southern Campaign is likely to parrot back some small subset of them. If you start digging back through time, others emerge which are equally impossible to document, but which often present a different view than the one that has hardened and codified across the centuries. Some of the lost tales are more sympathetic. Even those which aren't paint a more interesting and diverse picture of the man involved. The examples I've transcribed to date are short-short, so rather than breaking them down separately, I'm presenting them here in a group.

The Southside Raid

Greg Eanes' Tarleton's Southside Raid, an account of the British Legion action along the south side of the James River in July, 1781, includes brief anecdotal accounts of two "eyewitness" encounters with Tarleton which I don't recall seeing before. In each case, they originate in a collection of oral traditions local to that area of Virginia, which was first published in 1925.

The first incident is said to have taken place between Amelia Court House and Burke's Tavern in Virginia, and is reminiscent of the Parson Semple story or the tale of Mrs. Lacey's cows in that it shows Tarleton returning private items to their owners when he discovered they had been taken by his men:

One group of the British raiders captured local resident James Cooke, then a young boy, near his home in Jenning's Ordinary. He was made to ride on a horse behind one of the dragoons who carried him to Tarleton's headquarters. On the way over the British soldier took Cooke's shoe and knee buckles against the boy's objections. When they got to headquarters Cooke complained to Tarleton who ordered the items returned and the boy sent on his way.¹

In this case the effort was wasted, since the anecdote goes on to note that the dragoon followed the boy out of camp and stole them again. The second vignette has me decidedly interested in tracking down the cited source, to see what else it contains:

At one point...Tarleton sought some rest. A local resident recalled Tarleton behaving "generously towards the inhabitants during the raid. He visited Captain Joe Fowlkes's mother, a widow, who lived in Prince Edward a few miles above old Burkeville, and turned a chair down for a pillow and lay on the floor to rest. He set guards to watch and did not allow anything to be molested. He would always rebuke his men for depredations and in many instances showed a kind spirit."²

Although anecdotal, these comments are in harmony with other first-hand reminiscences. While Tarleton plays the monster in sixth-hand tales, the few people who recorded personal meetings with him are far more apt to describe a well-spoken and polite man. "I had a little conversation with Tarleton, & he behaved very civilly," Dr. Robert Honyman wrote in his diary, after an encounter with the Legion and their commander, while Thomas Young, as a prisoner of the Legion, noted that his captor was "very gentlemanly in his manners." The comment that he "turned a chair down for a pillow and lay on the floor" is also interestingly in line with Randall's comments (below).³

"A Soldierly Man"

Henry S. Randall's The Life of Thomas Jefferson is a most peculiar book in its handling of Tarleton. In general, Randall's presentation of the British viewpoint is precisely what one expects from its 1858 publishing date, i.e. thoroughly and irrationally vicious. But for some reason, he seems to have something bordering on affection for Tarleton. Even while recounting the Waxhaws "massacre" in full colors, he manages to throw the blame for it onto Lord Cornwallis's policies and the low moral caliber of the Legion troopers -- Tarleton himself emerges virtually unscathed. Later, he recounts this little anecdote, which is interesting for its take on Tarleton's style of living in the field:

Personally, he was an admirable soldier. He fared with his men. In the farm-house occupied for the night, he usually slept on his cloak on the floor, while subordinates crept into the feather beds. He was sudden as thought in determination and movement -- and always as placidly and inexorably cool as sudden. We shall have a signal instance of this within sight of Monticello.⁴

Some eighty pages later, he recounts the "signal instance":

A characteristic incident marked Tarleton's stay at Charlottesville. He retired from the town the day he entered it, and encamped for the night at the house of Mr. Lewis, on the west bank of the Rivanna. As usual, he slept on the floor in his horseman's cloak, and rose early to shave himself. A saddled horse stood for him at the door. He had on but his pantaloons, shirt and boots. His lathered face was about half shaved, when a shot broke on his ear. It came from the direction of Monticello, and was so reëchoed as to sound like an irregular fire from several muskets. The sound had not half died away, before Tarleton, bareheaded, his face as the razor had left it, was, with drawn sabre, fiercely spurring in the direction of the sound, and shouting to his dragoons to mount and follow. A more soldierly man, on action, never drew a blade in battle.⁵

The Capture of Keitt

This one showed up in a downright peculiar article in Blackwood's Magazine (published in Britain) in 1874. No credits are given for its source, and the rest of the article is of highly questionable worth, so it may be entirely apocryphal.

In order to show the distances which he was capable of surmounting, a story was currently told that, early one morning, Tarleton received intelligence that a rebel, named Keitt, had, alone and unassisted, defended his log-hut against a party of English soldiers, killing two or three of them, and driving away the rest, none of whom dared to cross his blood-stained threshold. The home thus desperately defended by Keitt lay more than 100 miles away, in the upper country of North Carolina. Taking half a dozen well-mounted men and a guide with him, Tarleton, the avenger, set off for the mountains, and before the next morning broke, Keitt was on his way, gagged and with his legs tied under his horse's belly, to the British camp. The way in which the dauntless rebel was captured illustrates the daring courage for which Tarleton was so famous. He received information that, at the back of Keitt's log-hut, there was a window, to admit light to the hovel, and placed about eight or ten feet from the ground. Shortly after midnight, Tarleton and his party drew up outside the cabin, and the leader commanded its inmates, in a loud voice, "to surrender in the King's name". The only answer was the crack of a rifle, fired through the chinks, which sorely wounded Tarleton's horse, and narrowly missed its rider's thigh. Commanding five of his men to keep the desperado occupied in front, Tarleton slipped quickly with his sixth man to the back of the hut, and, unobserved by its occupants, mounted upon the shoulders of his companion and peeped in through the window. He saw that the man at bay had two rifles, one of which was loaded by his wife, while he handled the other himself. Choosing a moment when both rifles had been discharged, and neither was completely reloaded, Tarleton sprang suddenly through the window, and leaped down upon Keitt. The struggle was desperate; but so prompt and unexpected was the attack, that the American had not time to get hold of any weapon before he was locked in Tarleton's iron grasp. In vain did Keitt's wife attempt to strike or stab the invader. Whenever her blow was about to fall, her husband's body was interposed. The English soldiers soon came to their leader's assistance; and Keitt, whom Tarleton respected for his gallantry, was a prisoner.⁶

[Thanks to Holley for transcribing the Keitt article.]

Notes:

¹ Greg Eanes, Tarleton's Southside Raid. (E. & H. Publishing Company, Inc., 2001), p10, citing Walter A. Watson, Notes on Southside Virginia. (Richmond, Va: Bulletin of the Va State Library, 1925; reprinted in 1973), p59. [ back ]

² Eanes, p15, citing Watson, p60. [ back ]

³ Richard K. MacMaster, ed., "News of the Yorktown Campaign: The Journal of Dr. Robert Honyman, April 17-November 25, 1781," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 79 (1971): 399. Thomas Young, "Memoir of Major Thomas Young," Orion Magazine, October/November, 1843, [pg unknown]. [ back ]

⁴ Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, 3 vols. (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1858), 1:263. [ back ]

⁵ Randall, 1:340. [ back ]

⁶ "Sir Banastre Tarleton," Blackwood's Magazine 116 (1874): 439-440. [ back ]