Posted on 08/08/2010 4:20:05 PM PDT by BigReb555
I don't think so, but the British and/or their Indian allies may well have burned people in houses up in Pennsylvania. The real life British Col. Tarleton herded SC livestock into a barn and burned them. Here's material from and old post of mine:
The real life Tavington (British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton) didn't burn people in a church but did order "cattle, hogs, and fowl driven into the barn where the corn was stored, the doors closed, and the barn put to the torch" [From The Road to Guilford Courthouse by John Buchanan.] Today, PETA would be after him.
In some respects, the British war against the Carolina colonists was similar to what Sherman did against the South. Consider the December 8, 1780, indictment of SC Governor Rutledge against Tarleton:
This, however, is but a faint description of our country, for it is beyond a doubt the enemy have hanged many of our people, who from fear and the impracticality of removing had given paroles, and from attachment to our side joined it. Nay, Tarleton has since the action at Black-stocks hung one Johnson, a magistrate of respectable character. They have also burnt a prodigious number of houses, and turned a vast many women, formerly of affluent and easy fortunes, with their children, almost naked into the woods.
Tarleton, at the house of General Richardson, exceeded his usual barbarities, for, having dined in his house, he not only burnt it afterwards, but having driven into the barns a number of cattle, hogs, and poultry, he consumed them, together with the barn and the corn in it, in one general blaze.
That is not to say that the British didn't burn people inside buildings during the Revolutionary War. Apparently they did (up in Pennsylvania), but Tarleton apparently didn't. See: Schooling Brits on the Patriot -- Mention of the Wyoming Valley Massacre. A British account of the Wyoming Valley Massacre that say the women and children were treated well and men given quarter when they asked for it. That account is included with a long patriot account of the affair in the following very long description. Interestingly, the patriot account tells of British and Indians attaching a long single file line of patriots, much like what happened in "The Patriot" movie.
attaching = attacking
It wasn't just the British. Actual British troops were scarce in the south. Instead, the war was mainly fought between loyalist and independence militias from the area. Tarleton's British Legion, for example, was composed of Tories. It was a preview, all right, but a preview of all-out civil war. When Nathanael Greene got there, he wrote back "the Whigs and Tories pursue one another with the most relentless Fury killing and destroying each other wherever they meet. Indeed a great Part of the Country is already laid Waste & in the utmost danger of becoming a Desert." One of Greene's aides wrote, "The country is so thinly inhabited and has been so stripped by the militia and the Enemy that there is no moving through it." Tory homes and farms were just as likely to be looted and burned as those supporting the revolution.
Nor were atrocities only on one side. Captured Tories were frequently lynched on the spot. One American commander, Benjamin Cleveland, was reputed to have hanged more than anyone else. Once he captured two Tories. After hanging one, he gave the other the choice of joining his companion or of cutting off his own ears. No points for guessing which the man chose. On another occasion, some men brought a captured Tory to Cleveland's estate. He wasn't home but his wife was. They asked what they should do with the prisoner and she told them to do what her husband would do. They hanged the man from the estate gate
And then there were the bandits, who fought for neither side but took advantage of the chaos for their own ends. There's a very good book called "Between the Lines: Banditti of the American Revolution" that's worth checking out.
Speaking of books, I have "The Green Dragoon: The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson", by Robert D. Bass, but it has been on my shelf since I got it some years ago at the Kings Mountain State Park book store. One day I'll get around to reading it. Until then it will serve as a reference book should I need information about Tarleton.
When Nathanael Greene got there, he wrote back "the Whigs and Tories pursue one another with the most relentless Fury killing and destroying each other wherever they meet. Indeed a great Part of the Country is already laid Waste & in the utmost danger of becoming a Desert."
Sounds like East Tennessee in the 1860s. Recriminations there did not stop when the WBTS ended.
Correction. I think the book store I purchased my book in is at the Kings Mountain National Military Park, not the South Carolina Kings Mountain State Park that adjoins(?) the Military Park. Whatever, the Kings Mountain book store is better (wider selection) than the average park book store.
Mt. Croghan, not Mt. Croghen, its late.
My grandmother grew up on a farm a few miles north of Lancaster. This was back before automobiles became common. She remembered going to Lancaster maybe twice a year. She would go on a horse-drawn wagon when the family went for supplies.
I imagine I might have some second, third, or fourth cousins still in that area. I've been there a couple of times, visiting the old church cemetery and seeing the stone that marks the corner boundary of North Carolina and South Carolina.
But I'll bet your skull is....
On the other hand, look up the Gnadenhutten Massacre.
:)
But they don’t exist.....
So what’s on the agenda and who are these people?
_______________________
I often wonder if it’s because the South is mostly red states and they want to change that. Maybe they think if they make all of the South and the people in it, appear to be racist boogey men, they can change it and have their Socialist Yankee utopia that they so desire.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.