# Why wasn't Banastre Tarleton executed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 4, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949 "2009-12-04T04:26:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/21 "2011-06-19T13:42:49Z")
Do I take it that the American revolutionaries committed no atrocities …? I am conscious that the history of my own country (Ireland) was heavily edited after our independence. In the version I learned at school, the evil British forces committed countless atrocities against the Irish people. The saintly Irish stood aghast at these dread events, occasionally retaliating and rebelling when their patience could no longer bear the pain. Of course, the reality was less black and white. Of course British forces did do evil, but there were also appalling atrocities by Irish revolutionaries - particularly in 1798 and in the War of Independence. We have erased the latter from our folk memories. So, remember that the victors write the history books. Those books are not always accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/22 "2011-06-19T13:53:44Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Although, according to Wiki, “All of Cornwallis’ men were declared prisoners of war, promised good treatment in American camps, and officers were permitted to return home after taking their parole,” surely the Americans could’ve insisted on exempting such a widely-hated man from the terms of the Articles of Capitulation, then arresting, prosecuting and (a foregone conclusion) executing him. As it was, Tarleton returned safely home, was later elected to Parliament and further proved himself a scumbag by strenuously opposing the abolition of slavery. > > What gives? Maybe they believed in the principle of good treatment and thought it better not to start making exceptions? > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Do we know for sure that the guy was ever individually identified by the Americans _at the time_ as being among the who knows how many thousands of individual prisoners? I seems far more likely to me that he was herded in a barracks for a time and later onto a ship because he was wearing a uniform of a particular rank. I should think that at that time officers would have been immediately identified and separated for better treatment, not left with the mass of surrendering soldiers. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/23 "2011-06-19T13:57:25Z")
Sorry, my intention was not to hijack the thread. I omitted to make the relvant point, that the revolutionaries may not have had the level of anger that is supposed by the OP. Armed conflicts are a series of evil and bloody acts, which are romanticised afterwards by people who did not take part in them. If they focused on them at all, it is likely that the revolutionaries viewed his actions as part of a greater evil. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/24 "2011-06-19T21:39:44Z")
Yes, there were terrible things done on both sides, as in just about any war, but I can think of no American who was excoriated by the British for war crimes as Tarleton was blasted by the Americans. He was notorious even then, and would surely have been recognized by his captors. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/25 "2026-06-23T13:50:12Z")
Bumped. Just visited the Yorktown battlefield, and asked my National Park Service ranger guide the same question. He said he doesn’t recall reading any contemporary accounts or Continental Army correspondence of a demand being made for Tarleton to be turned over and tried. He told me, however, about an older American colonist who traveled some distance to Yorktown to recover some horses seized by Tarleton on one of his raids. As the story goes, he found Tarleton himself on one of the horses, and threatened the British officer with a club. Tarleton got off the horse at once, and the man took it away. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/26 "2026-06-24T17:20:32Z")
The reality of the American War of Independence is that the British capitulated not because they couldn’t win but because they had other priorities and tired of trying. Cornwallis’ surrender was when they realized that it would cost them more than they cared to commit. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2026, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/27 "2026-06-25T18:01:50Z")
And we went out and got ourselves a whole nother empire anyway. There is a portrait of Tarleton in the National Gallery, altho’ it owes its position to the fame of the artist rather than the sitter. [Sir Joshua Reynolds | Colonel Tarleton | NG5985 | National Gallery, London](https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/sir-joshua-reynolds-colonel-tarleton) ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2026, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/28 "2026-06-25T18:07:42Z")
Agreed. A natural product of war are many crimes that go unpunished. I’m thinking that we weren’t always the sweetest angels, either. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2026, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/29 "2026-06-25T19:22:20Z")
Of course not. But Tarleton, during the Revolution, was in a category all to himself, and was _the_ notorious British officer among them all. > [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > The reality of the American War of Independence is that the British capitulated not because they couldn’t win but because they had other priorities and tired of trying. Cornwallis’ surrender was when they realized that it would cost them more than they cared to commit. As to the British government in 1781-83, agreed. As to Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, disagreed. He surrendered on his own authority because his army was surrounded, under heavy shelling, with disease taking a terrible toll, and had no realistic chance of being relieved in time. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2026, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/30 "2026-06-26T12:40:35Z")
It’s perhaps worth keeping in mind that the people who would have been in a position to order Tarleton’s execution were officers and “gentlemen”, like Tarleton himself. In other words, not the people to whom Tarleton was especially horrible, and people who had a vested interest in maintaining a precedent of not executing officers. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2026, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/31 "2026-06-26T13:16:06Z")
They were also guilty of treason against the King. A case for reprisals could easily have been made against any one of their compatriots held as a POW by the UK. Oh, you’re going to execute one of our officers for (not really that) extraordinary cruelty? Fine, we’ll execute ten of yours for treason. They very nearly did the same thing over the execution of Major André the year before. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2026, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/32 "2026-06-26T13:27:10Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > It would have started both sides down a slippery slope of accusation and counter-accusation, and pretty soon the entire [Treaty of Paris](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_%281783%29) would have slid down the Banastre. This is pretty much it. And while you’d think there’d be a lot of animosity between two peoples who just fought a war with one another, a lot of Americans _and_ British people just wanted to get back to doing business with one another as quickly as possible (not that there weren’t some hard feelings that carried over for a few decades). ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2026, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949/33 "2026-06-27T09:38:06Z")
And the New England Yankee merchants continued to trade with Britain throughout the War of 1812. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-banastre-tarleton-executed/519949.md?page=1)