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The half-dozen variations of this quotation have probably been laid at Tarleton's door more than any other piece of mythology. In fact, the original comment which spawned them was not made by Banastre at all but by that notorious wit, Horace Walpole. Walpole was an outspoken supporter of the American colonies. Throughout the war, he had many unflattering things to say against British policy in the Americas, including more than one jibe at Banastre.

The gist of the story is summarized in Bass, but Doc M was kind enough to search out the original entry in Walpole's edited letters. The quote comes from a letter from Walpole to Rev. William Mason, dated 23 February 1782. Walpole has been discussing some promotions within the Church of England hierarchy; "lawn sleeves" are a mark of a bishop. "Mohocks" here is being used in the sense of "savages," from "Mohawks," rather than in the colloquial sense of an earlier period of the 18th century.

"It is no new Fast candidate that is to have the vacant mitre, but that poor creature Dr. Bagot, and the Fast sycophant Bishop Butler is to have the deanery of St. Paul's. Perhaps you thought these cures of souls would have been given to the Mohocks Arnold and Tarleton, who are bloody enough to wear lawn sleeves. I must tell you a saying of Sheridan too sublime to be called a bon mot. Tarleton boasts of having butchered more men, and lain with more women than anybody -- 'Lain with,' said Sheridan, 'what a weak expression; -- he should have said, ravished -- rapes are the relaxation of murder.'"¹

Doc M offers the following commentary:

The context suggests it was written in a vein of malicious humour, tying in Brigadier Arnold and Ban to a discussion of clerical appointments.

Walpole and Sheridan (an M.P.) were both highly vociferous opponents of the war, and like many of the domestic opposition, quite happy to latch on to and circulate Rebel propaganda, &c. (And those who think we were living in some kind of chain-rattling tyranny should note that none of the Parliamentary Opposition (whose politics Ban actually shared) was arrested for treason or sedition, even though some of them went so far as to publicly celebrate Rebel victories during the war... really "tasteful," given that Britain was under threat of invasion...)

There is no mention -- as some versions would have us believe -- that Ban made his comment in front of respectable females; nor is it clear that the female conquests were during the war. It's even possible he may have meant he "butchered more men" during the war, and that the women were flocking to him since he had returned as a popular hero (not an uncommon phenomenon).

Sheridan must have learned to eat his words, since he and Ban became Parliamentary colleagues, both radical Whigs in Fox's circle. In his capacity as a playwright and impresario, he was also a friend of Mary Robinson's. (Jealous, too, perhaps?)

The overall impression is that Sheridan was indulging in a cruel joke at the expense of someone he perhaps did not yet know well, having already got wind of his "Butcher Ban" reputation from Rebel polemics. One wonders if he ever actually apologised to Ban once they had to work together. Ban tended to be generous-spirited towards critics and former enemies; more so than many of his former enemies were to him.

As Doc M mentions, some versions of the story claim that Tarleton's boast was made in front of "respectable women." Thanks to Max for tracking this piece of embroidery to what may have been its original printed account, in Winthrop Sargent's The Life and Career of Major John André (1861). According to Sargent,

"An ill-advised boast, in the presence of a lady of influence, that [Tarleton] had not only slain more men in America, but had more nearly approached the feats of Proculus in Gaul than any other soldier in the royal army, so incensed his hearer that she determined he should lose his seat at the next election -- and she carried her point."²

The date on Walpole's original letter (1782) places it at several years before the beginning of Banastre's political career. At the time, he had no seat to lose and no immediate hope of acquiring one, so Sargent's story can be immediately tossed into the category of folk myth.

As Doc M points out, we have no record of exactly what Banastre himself had to say concerning his American track record either in the bedroom or on the battlefield. But he was proud of his skills in both arenas, and he is reputed to have been of a boastful nature, so it is completely plausible that he provided Walpole with some form of ammunition for taking a snipe at him. The story got around during the early 1780s, though it is difficult to tell if it was some comment by Tarleton himself which was being bandied about, or Sheridan's "bon mot" on it. Ironically, after Tarleton became Sheridan's confederate in Whig politics, Tory newspapers used the Walpole/Sheridan version against him, thus granting it immortality.

Whatever words may have prompted it, was the gist of Walpole's comment true? That Tarleton was an efficient and ruthless soldier on the battlefield is well chronicled, and he had every reason to be proud of his professional skills. They fueled his incredible rise from cornet to colonel on merit alone, in an army where advancement was more often tied to political or personal connections.

He is also widely recorded as possessing a great fondness for female company, and considerable success at acquiring it.

• One of his earliest pieces of publicity, as a junior officer serving in Philadelphia, came not from his military prowess but for being "fairly caught in bed with Major Crewe's mistress." ³
   
• He is anecdotally recorded as a non-partisan flirt, as willing to charm rebel ladies as Tory belles. Speaking of Banastre's visits to Brabant, the plantation of Bishop Smith in the Carolinas, Bass comments, "Brabant became a constant rendezvous for the Green Dragoon. His handsome appearance, his Oxford wit, and his courtly manners endeared him to both friend and foe. In after years these ladies testified that their most courteous and gallant admirer had been Banastre Tarleton." Even the hostile Garden admitted that, in the opinion of the Brabant ladies, "The delicacy of [Tarleton's] attentions to them could not be surpassed; and they with unanimity declare, that they never witnessed any act proceeding from his orders, that did not entitle him to their respect and gratitude."⁴
   
• After he returned to England, his affair with Mary Robinson kept him in the gossip columns for years.
   

Again, Walpole's comment is in-line with established truth.

On the other hand, I have never seen so much as a shred of evidence to support Sheridan's catty modification. Even rebel propaganda did not weave accusations of rape into Ban's mythology. It is rare to find a story of him being rude to a woman, far less assaulting one.

Simple truth was no obstacle to the imagination of 19th century historians. Eager for every hint of titillating nastiness to add to the demonization of Tarleton, they embraced the Walpole/Sheridan joke and applied it as a "proof" of all sorts of villainous behavior. Even then, the most pervasive accusation was not that Ban committed rape himself, but a fraudulent claim that he condoned it among his men.

In any war situation, it is an unfortunate "given" that violence against civilian women will occur, and the Southern Campaign was certainly no exception. However, I have been able to track down only two documented incidents of assault involving members of the British Legion, and in each case, far from ignoring or condoning the crime, Tarleton is known to have taken immediate action to confine and prosecute the offenders.

The first known case is commonly called the "Lady Colleton" incident, and Doc M. describes it in her article on "The Ferguson vs. Tarleton Feud." Rather than refusing to prosecute the troopers involved, as Lyman Draper claimed, Tarleton sent a surgeon and an officer with twelve men to protect and assist the injured women, had the AWOL troopers arrested and confined, and privately recommended to high command that one man be hanged for his "cruel offenses." As modern writer Carl Borick observes, "Tarleton['s...] sympathy for these women is in sharp contrast to the unattractive picture that many historians have painted of him."⁵

The second incident took place in Virginia, and that time Tarleton himself documented the apprehension and trial of "the villains who had committed atrocious outrages" including rape and robbery in his Campaigns. And again, there is nary a hint that he made light of the incident or considered it other than a heinous crime.⁶

Whatever sparked Walpole's remark, it is reasonable to assume he intended for it to foster the wrong impression. With Sheridan's help, he has succeeded in doing just that for more than two hundred years.

Notes:

¹ Horace Walpole, The Letters of Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, ed. Mrs. Paget Toynbee, 16 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903-05), 12:176. [ back ]

² Winthrop Sargent, The Life and Career of Major André (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1861), p148. [ back ]

³ Political Magazine, quoted in Robert D. Bass, The Green Dragoon; The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson (New York: Henry Holt and Company; 1957), p37. [ back ]

⁴ Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War in America, with Sketches of Character of Persons the Most Distinguished, in the Southern States, for Civil and Military Services (The Reprint Company, 1972), p287. Bass, p76. [ back ]

⁵ Deposition against Henry McDonaugh signed by Banastre Tarleton and Patrick Ferguson, 15 April 1780, Clinton Papers; Tarleton to John André, Undated letter filed at the end of April 1780, ibid., both referenced in Carl P. Borick, A Gallant Defense; The Siege of Charleston, 1780 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), pp152-3. [ back ]

⁶ Banastre Tarleton, A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America; (London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1787), p290. [ back ]