Despite the obvious Hollywood flair, the history in the film is fairly accurate. Gibson is joined on screen by the late, great Heath Ledger, but the most notable performance comes in that of the villain, Colonel William Tavington, commander of the elite Green Dragoons, as portrayed by the noted British actor Jason Issacs. This guy is pure evil and Issacs is so convincing, you literally hate him by the end of the first scene in which he appears. His character is a sadistic and unrepentant military officer with no conscience or battlefield ethics. In one scene he shoots Benjamin Martin’s young son in cold blood, in another he orders an entire town’s residents to be locked in their own church and burned alive. His line, “The ends justify the means.” It is a memorable performance to say the least.

Sir Joshua Reynolds’ 1782 portrait of General Banastre Tarleton.

What most folks may not know is that Colonel William Tavington was based closely on a very real and equally feared trooper named General Sir Banastre Tarleton.

According to the Wikipedia entry on Tarleton: In a publication “THE GREEN DRAGOON: The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson” by Robert D. Bass he was given the nickname “Bloody Ban” and The Butcher, which has carried over into popular culture as being his nickname of the day. According to his bio, He was hailed by the Loyalists and British as an outstanding leader of light cavalry, and was praised for his tactical prowess and resolve, even against superior numbers. His green uniform was the standard of the British Legion, a provincial unit organized in New York in 1778. Tarleton was later elected as a Member of Parliament for Liverpool and became a prominent Whig politician. Tarleton’s cavalrymen were frequently called “Tarleton’s Raiders.”

Tarleton’s legacy as a ruthless commander followed his actions at the Battle of Waxhaw. They are still debated today. In May of 1780, Tarleton’s forces consisting of 150 mounted light infantry troops overwhelmed a detachment of 350+ Continental infantryman led by Abraham Buford. It is argued that despite their surrendering, Buford’s men were attacked and cut to pieces by Tarleton’s men. Estimates state that 113 Americans were killed, 150 were severely wounded and 203 were captured and abused. The British referred to this battle as the Battle of Waxhaw Creek, while the Continentals called it “The Waxhaw Massacre.”

In retrospect, some accounts have since then supported the notion that Tarleton’s men attacked on their own accord. An American field surgeon named Robert Brownfield wrote that Col. Buford had indeed raised a white flag of surrender, but that Tarleton’s horse was shortly after struck by a musket ball and fell. This gave the impression that the rebels had shot at Tarleton while asking for mercy. Enraged, the British cavalrymen charged. According to Brownfield, the loyalists attacked, carrying out “indiscriminate carnage never surpassed by the most ruthless atrocities of the most barbarous savages.” In Tarleton’s own account, he stated that his men, thinking him dead, engaged in “a vindictive asperity not easily restrained.”

Our friend Eric Wittenberg has an excellent feature on this affair in the current May/June issue of Patriots of the American Revolution.