The British Legion was an elite British provincial regiment established during the American Revolutionary War, composed of Loyalist American troops, organized as infantry and cavalry, plus a detachment from the 16th Light Dragoons. The unit was commonly known as Tarleton's Legion, after the British officer who led it on campaign, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. It was a unit the size of a regiment, consisting of artillery, cavalry, and light infantry, and able to operate independently.
Major George Hanger, later Lord Coleraine (1751–1824) in the uniform of the British Legion
Elements of the Legion fought at the Siege of Savannah in 1779. The Legion as a whole was part of the British force that besieged and captured Charleston in 1780. The regiment participated in many battles in Clinton's South Carolina campaign, defeating General Isaac Huger and Lieutenant Colonel William Washington at Monck's Corner, dispersing another American force at Lenud's Ferry, and routing an American column under Colonel Abraham Buford at the Battle of Waxhaws.[5]
During 1780, the Legion received reinforcements in the form of more drafts from Emmerich's Chasseurs and the Prince of Wales' American Volunteers and the permanent attachment of the Bucks County Dragoons.[3]
Throughout the autumn of 1780, the British Legion took part in anti-guerrilla operations, attempting to hunt down Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter and engaging in combat at Fishdam Ford and Blackstock's. The Legion seized and destroyed property in punitive attempts to suppress support for the guerrillas.[1][5]
In January 1781, the Legion was part of the force under Tarleton defeated by Daniel Morgan at the Battle of Cowpens. The regiment suffered heavily in this action, particularly its infantry arm. After Cowpens, the remaining Legion infantry either transferred to the cavalry or joined the garrison of Charleston.[6] From this point forward, the active British Legion was a cavalry force only.
The Legion was taken onto the American Establishment on March 7, 1781, as the 5th American Regiment.[7] This made them an official part of the British Army, rather than provincial (local) troops.
As Cornwallis shifted his communications to the Chesapeake and abandoned the Carolinas for Virginia, the British Legion cavalry under Tarleton raided ahead of the British army, nearly capturing Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia General Assembly at Charlottesville. The Legion again engaged in widespread destruction to punish rebel sympathizers and deny material support to the Continental Army and government.[1]
After Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, the Legion moved across the York River to Gloucester on 2 October. They later fought a skirmish with French troops there and surrendered to the French at the conclusion of the siege.[1][8] Lord Cornwallis sought terms of surrender that would have ensured no reprisals against the Loyalists in his army, but Washington refused to agree to them.[2] Some of the men of the Legion were evacuated, sent with Cornwallis' dispatches to New York after the surrender. Some officers were paroled. Some enlisted men, and at least four officers who volunteered to stay with their troopers, were sent to a prison camp in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.[6]
Regiment disbanded and resettled in British Canada
On December 25, 1782, the regiment was taken onto the British establishment, suggesting that there may have been some thought to maintain the regiment as part of the postwar army.[7] The infantry of the Legion still in Charleston, and such of the regiment as had escaped to New York, were eventually evacuated to Nova Scotia in 1783.[9] Some officers transferred to other regiments of the British Army.[6][9] The British Legion was disbanded on October 10, 1783.[2] Most of those discharged settled in Nova Scotia.[2]
Legacy
Thomas Raddall, the prolific, award-winning writer on historical subjects, said of the British Legion:
Of all the loyalists who fought in the War of the American Revolution none were more famous in their day than those who formed the British Legion, generally known as Tarleton's Legion. By all accounts, British and American, this was the best led, the most enduring, the most dashing, the most relentless, and on the whole the most successful of the Loyalist regiments, and for all these reasons it was the one most feared and hated by rebels. To this day in the Carolinas and Virginia the exploits of Tarleton's Legion are folklore, and American histories still devote much invective to the memory of that celebrated corps… [2]
American Oscar E. Gilbert, who has written much about tanks of the US Marine Corps, provides some of that invective:
…sent south to terrorize and subdue their fellow colonists, the battle efficiency of Tarleton's Legion was exceeded only by its mindless brutality.
and
The Legion had earned a reputation for butchery, literally hacking apart men who threw down their arms in surrender, and mutilating rebel wounded.[10]
^Babits, page 46, "British Legion Infantry strength at Cowpens was between 200 and 271 enlisted men". However, this statement is referenced to a note on pages 175–176, which says, “The British Legion infantry at Cowpens is usually considered to have had about 200–250 men, but returns for the 25 December 1780 muster show only 175. Totals obtained by Cornwallis, dated 15 January, show that the whole legion had 451 men, but approximately 250 were dragoons”. There would therefore appear to be no evidence for putting the total strength of the five British Legion Light Infantry companies at more than 200.
^ abcFrom Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South, Henry Lumpkin, Paragon House, 1981.
^Gilbert, Oscar E.; Gilbert, Catherine R. (2015). True for the cause of liberty: the Second Spartan Regiment in the American Revolution. Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers. ISBN9781612003276.
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