User:Bhrubin1/sandbox

After his first major victory at Monck’s Corner, during the Siege of Charleston, an incident occurred that would transform itself into a critical part of the mythology surrounding the Colonel’s reputation. Following the battle, one of Tarleton’s soldier perpetrated an act of attempted sexual assault against a civilian woman in the area, which was halted by one of his companions. This much of the story is well-documented and historical. However, the story was embellished as an anecdote in a biography of George Washington by the 19th century American folklorist Washington Irving, who alluded to an argument between Tarleton and fellow British officer Patrick Ferguson over whether the culprit ought to be executed or released. According to Irving: "“We honor the rough soldier Ferguson,” Irving wrote “for the fiat of instant death with which he would have requited the most infamous and dastardly outrage that brutalizes warfare.” Tarleton, on the other hand, reveled in his own misconduct and that of his soldiers “for afterwards, in England, he had the effrontery to boast, in the presence of a lady of respectability, that he had killed more men, and ravished more women than any man in America.”" Irving himself would go on to be reintroduced to a new generation of readers through the late nineteenth century writings of Lyman Draper. There is no historical evidence of this disagreement ever taking place, and was likely an invention of Irving's. However, the story, contained in both volumes, paired with Tarleton's alleged brutality at The Battle of Waxhaws (see below), helped to create the common image of him as a brutal commander, uninterested in the conventions of civilized warfare.