a British soldier and politician. Tarleton was eventually ranked as a general years after his service in the colonies during the American Revolutionary War, and afterwards did not lead troops into battle. Banastre Tarleton was known for his British military service in the American War of Independence, which started when Tarleton was twenty-one. As a military commander he was the subject of a rebel American campaign which claimed that Tarleton's British Legion had massacred surrendering Continental Army troops at the Battle of Waxhaws, South Carolina, in 1780.
