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1778. He was major in Col. Harcourt's regiment of dragoons, and accompanied Harcourt in the raid upon Baskingridge, N. J., which resulted in the capture of Gen. Charles Lee, 13 Dec. Little is heard of him dur- ing the next three years. In Decem- ber, 1779, he accom- panied the expedi- tion of Sir Henry Clinton to South Carolina with the rank of lieutenant- colonel. He raised and organized a troop known as the "British legion," or sometimes as " Tarleton's le- gion." It com- prised both light infantry and cav- alry, with a few field - pieces, and was thus a minia- ture army in itself. It was made up partly of British

regulars, partly of

New York loyalists, and was further recruited by loyalists of South Carolina. At the head of this legion Tarleton soon made himself formidable in partisan warfare. In the difficult country of the Carolinas, with poor roads, frequent swamps or pine-barrens, and scant forage, he could move far more rapidly than the regular army, and his blows were delivered with sudden and crushing effect. After Clinton's capture of Charleston, 12 May, 1780, Col. Buford's regiment, which had been "march- ing toward Charleston, began its retreat to Vir- ginia, but Tarleton, giving chase, overtook and overwhelmed it at Waxhaw Creek, near the border between the two Carolinas. Nearly all Buford's men were slaughtered, and thenceforth the phrase " Tarleton's quarter " was employed to denote wholesale butchery. At Camden, 15 Aug., Tarle- ton completed the ruin of Gen. Gates's left wing. At Fishing Creek, 18 Aug., he surprised Gen. Thomas Sumter, and utterly routed and dispersed his force; but at Blackstock's Hill, 20 Nov., Sum- ter returned the compliment, and severely defeated Tarleton. Early in January, 1781, Lord Corn- wallis sent Tarleton, with 1,100 men, westward to the mountain country to look after Gen. Daniel Morgan, who was threatening the British inland posts. At the Cowpens, 17 Jan., Morgan, with 900 men, awaited his attack and almost annihilated his force of 1,100 men in one of the most brilliant battles of the war. Tarleton accompanied Corn- wallis during his campaigns in North Carolina and Virginia. In June, 1781, he made a raid upon Gov. Jefferson's house at Monticello : but the gov- ernor, forewarned, had escaped to the mountains a few minutes before Tarleton s arrival. He remained with Cornwallis until the surrender at Yorktown. On returning to England he was promoted colonel. In 1790 he was elected to parliament from Liver- pool, and was so popular that all the expenses of the election were borne by his friends. He was member of parliament in 1790-1800, and again in 1807-12. In 1817 he reached the grade of lieu- tenant-general, and was made a baronet, 6 Nov., 1818. Ross, the editor of Cornwallis's "Corre- spondence," says (p. 44) that, in the house of com- mons, Tarleton " was notorious for his criticisms on military affairs, the value of which may be esti- mated from the fact that he almost uniformly con- demned the Duke of Wellington." He published a " History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America " (Lon- don, 1787). This book has value in so far as it contains many documents that cannot elsewhere be obtained except with great labor. As a narra- tive it is spoiled by the vanity of the author, who distorts events for his self-glorification to a degree that is seldom paralleled in books of this charac- ter. The work was severely criticised by Col. Rod- erick Mackenzie, "Strictures on Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton's History " (London, 1787). Mackenzie in turn was answered by Tarleton's second in com- mand, Major George Hanger, afterward Lord Cole- rain, " Address to the Army in Reply to Colonel Mackenzie's Strictures " (London, 1787). The best- known portrait of Tarleton is the one by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1782), representing him in full uniform, with his foot on a cannon, from which the accom- panying vignette is copied. Among the English colonel's American friends was Israel Halleck, a loyalist, father of Fitz-Greene, who was for a time a member of his military family, and between whom and Tarleton there was an enduring friendship.

TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE, Joseph (tash-ah - ), Chevalier, French soldier, b. in the castle of La Pagerie, near Blois. in 1701 ; d. in Trois Islets, Martinique, in 1762. He was descended from a family of German origin that settled in Blaisois about the 12th century, and whose mem- bers served with credit in the army and in the magistracy. In 1726 he settled in Martinique, where he married a wealthy Creole, Aymer de la Chevalerie, and held for several years the office of lieutenant of the king in Saint Pierre. During the English invasion in 1756 he armed his slaves, led them to the front, and was dangerously wounded at the attack on Grande Savane. — His son, Joseph Gaspard, Chevalier, and afterward Baron, b. in Carbet, Martinique, 5 July, 1735 ; d. in Trois Islets, 6 Nov., 1790, became, when seventeen years old, a page to the Dauphine Marie Josephe, served afterward as lieutenant in the marines, and fought against the English when they invaded Martinique in 1756. After the conclusion of peace in 1763 he was retired with the brevet of captain, made a knight of Saint Louis, and devoted himself to agricultural pursuits on his large estate at Trois Islets. He published several treatises on colonial methods of culture. — By his wife, Rose Claire des Vergers de Sannois (b. in Saint Pierre, Martinique, 27 Aug., 1736; d. in Trois Islets, 2 June, 1807), he had three daughters, the eldest of whom was Marie Josephine Rose, who became the Empress Josephine.

TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE, Louis Robert Pierre Claude, Count and afterward Duke, West Indian soldier, b. in Fort de France, Mar- tinique, 1 April, 1787 ; d. in Paris, France, 3 March, 1861. He was a first cousin to Empress Josephine, and received his early education in Martinique. Napoleon Bonaparte summoned him to France in 1802, and placed him at the military school of Fontainebleau. He was promoted lieutenant in 1806, assisted in the battle of Eylau, was aide-de-camp to Napoleon at the battle of Friedland, served under Junot in Portugal in 1808, was afterward aide-de-camp to Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, son of Empress Josephine, and, accompanying him to Bavaria in 1815, became a major-general in the Bavarian army. He was created a senator of the empire on 31 Dec, 1852, and made on 27 Jan., 1853, grand-master of