South Carolina PingAdd me to the list. / Remove me from the list.
Posted on 03/13/2006 6:15:57 PM PST by Pharmboy
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The heirs of the British general known for brutal attacks in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War are auctioning flags won in key battles.
South Carolina is mounting an effort to bring home flags British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton took from a bloody battlefield five miles south of the state line in South Carolina. It's a place that some say became an emotional turning point that fixed American hearts against the British enemy.
Accounts of what happened on May 29, 1780, vary, but the commonly held view is that American Col. Abraham Buford thought his 350 Virginia Continentals was outnumbered by Tarleton's force and ordered a flag of truce raised. But when Tarleton approached, his horse was shot and fell on him.
His men, thinking their commander was killed under flag of truce, attacked, inflicting an average of 16 saber and bayonet wounds on each of the 113 dead and 150 wounded. Tarleton's men suffered five dead and 14 wounded.
The brutality of what South Carolinians call Buford's Massacre or Buford's Defeat brought calls for revenge and has left scholars calling it one of the war's most important events.
"Any relic associated with that dark experience in Lancaster County has great symbolic value for South Carolina and the nation," said Alexia Jones Helsley, a consultant for the S.C. Department of Archives and History. "The flags captured by Tarleton are testaments to the anger that would turn a black day into one of eventual victory. As such, the flags encapsulate the essence of the War for Independence in the South."
With 109 of the Waxhaws battle dead in two mass graves in the Palmetto State, South Carolina wants Tarleton's war prize back.
Fritz Hamer, chief curator of cultural history at the S.C. State Museum, is part of a group of state officials and scholars working to raise the money to return flags he insists belong in his museum. Virginians also want the flags. But they won't come cheap.
The banners are expected to cost $3 million to $6 million at a Sotheby's auction on June 14, Flag Day. The beneficiary: a Tarleton heir in the long line of families that have hung the trophies in their homes for most of the past 226 years.
Lately they've hung on the walls of Capt. Christopher Tarleton Fagan's home. He is Tarleton's great-great-great-great-nephew. His ancestor "has been given a much worse name than he should have," Fagan said in a November interview in The New York Times.
"His troops thought he'd been killed," Fagan said, and they "went to town and butchered people, which was monstrous, and Tarleton got the blame for it." Tarleton returned to England a war hero and later won election to Parliament.
David Redden, vice chairman of Sotheby's, says it's unclear why Fagan is putting them on the market. "The family recognizes that the flags have great monetary value and that actually makes it harder for them to continue to hold onto them," Redden says. The three flags include one of gold silk, with 12 inches cut from it, that is decorated with a beaver gnawing a palmetto tree and the motto "Perseverando" under a blue canton of 13 stars. A second is a blue silk flag with heavy stains thought to be blood and the third is gold silk. Both of those have the word "Regiment" on them.
The regimental flags were important at a time when there was no national flag. Men, Redden says, swore loyalty to them. "These represented the soul, spirit and emotions of the regiment. If one object captured the cause for which these men were fighting, it would be the battle flags."
David Redden | vice chairman of Sotheby's
Yep...Tarleton's men sure demonstrated that, when they got revenge for the South Carolinians shooting at their officer under a flag of truce!
S.C. ping
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Tarleton may not have been quite as bad as he was portrayed during the RevWar . . .
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I tend to disagree. I've read quite a bit from different sources that consistently describe Tarleton's tactics as exceedingly harsh. The fictionalized version of him in "The Patriot" is exaggerated, but not by much according to some contemporary reports. He was accused of burning at least one town, though he did not order any type of massacre as depicted in the film.
Dragoons is where we get the term "goons" from.
Can't remember the name of it, sorry- but my husband and I went on a walking tour of Charleston last summer (July) that started at the Rhett House (historic downtown). The man that lead the walk wrote a book about the history of Charleston- with a focus on the Civil War. It is an excellent read, sorry I can't remember the title- the Rhett house may have a copy on their first floor.
Thank you! It is much appreciated!
"His troops thought he'd been killed," Fagan said, and they "went to town and butchered people, which was monstrous, and Tarleton got the blame for it."
Still trying to rehabilitate Bloody Ban, I see. Tarleton's notoriety predated this battle by a considerable amount of time. The phrase "Tarleton's Quarter," meaning no quarter, did not originate with this battle, either.
I did not know that his rep came from before this battle. Thanks.
Does Fagan live in England and have the flags been there for centuries? Interesting story...
Yes and yes...
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