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One of the silliest stories ever told about Banastre Tarleton's days in the Carolinas is reputed to have happened in Lancaster County, when local Tories captured a well-known Whig fugitive named Charles Mackey. They turned him over to Tarleton, whereupon he was tried and sentenced to be hanged as a rebel and a spy.

At the time, Mackey's wife, Lydia, was pregnant with their third or fourth child. When she heard of her husband's pending execution, she rushed to the Legion encampment. Managing to reach Tarleton through trickery (she pretended to be a huckster with eggs and produce to sell), she confronted him and begged for her husband's life. Tarleton replied that he was in a hurry, and didn't have time right then to consider the case. When Lydia reminded him that her husband had been condemned to die the next morning, he said he would inquire into the matter later in the day, then turned away to mount his horse. The hysterical Mrs. Mackey promptly flung herself upon him and dragged him to the ground. With a scowl and admirable restraint, Banastre picked himself up, assured her once more that he would look into the matter when he had time, and tried a second time to mount. Again, Mrs. Mackey tackled him. By the third time he found himself sitting in the dirt, Banastre apparently concluded that there was only one way to prevent this madwoman from doing further damage to his dignity and his bad-boy image. He agreed to commute her husband's death sentence and paroled him (or perhaps even pardoned him outright) instead.

The story appears in various collections of Revolutionary War folk tales. The time and location given for its occurrence move around, and the details change radically. It is noticeably absent from Elizabeth Ellet's The Women of the American Revolution, which would seem an obvious place for it to have been collected if it had existed in any form prior to 1850.

On the other hand, what is probably the original publication of the tale appeared in the February, 1884 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The author, who isn't named, styled himself as the son of Lydia's ninth and youngest child and claimed that "Lydia Mackey in her old age was a fine talker, and when I was a boy ten years old I heard her tell this story... [to] her little grandchildren gathered around her knees." The version he told is rather more elaborate than later recountings in terms of Charlie's capture, but it spared Tarleton the pratfalls -- Lydia merely pulled him back to his feet on the ground by the horse. In his wrap-up, the author observed that "The name of Tarleton was execrated in South Carolina till a very late period. But the Lydia Mackey episode shows that he had a heart not wholly steeled against the nobler feelings of humanity." ¹

I've always thought the strongest argument in the story's favor is that it runs so completely counter to customary myths. If it were merely a "Bloody Ban" legend, surely the amazonian Lydia and her husband would have suffered a nasty fate. The infamous "Butcher of the Waxhaws" really ought have picked himself up after the first attack, and shot Lydia, run her through, had her arrested, or, at the very least, ravished her where she stood (she's not pregnant in all versions -- in some she's quite comely). Instead he tolerated two more pratfalls, then figuratively awarded her the field. One version of the story claims that he did it because of "embarrassment". My bet is that he would have been laughing his fool head off. This, after all, was a man who is known to have once involved himself in a footrace against a horse -- he can't have been overly concerned with his dignity.

Whatever originally happened, the incident was no doubt well and truly embroidered through years of verbal retelling before it achieved the form in which it is best remembered.

Notes:

¹ "Lydia Mackey and Colonel Tarleton; An Episode of the Revolutionary War," Harper's New Monthly Magazine (February 1884): p470. No author's name appears within the article itself, but I haven't seen the Table of Contents for the issue, so it is possible that he was named there. [ back ]