GASSAR Historic Sites - Buford Massacre 2005

When Charleston surrendered, a regiment of three hundred fifty Virginia Continental troops with a small party of Colonel William Washington's cavalry, led by Colonel Abraham Buford, had retreated some forty miles from Charleston toward Hillsboro, North Carolina. Cornwallis sent Colonel Banastre Tarleton after them with two hundred seventy mounted troops and overtook the retreating Americans on May 29 at the Waxhaws, near the North Carolina border. Colonel Buford was surprised by the attack and in the ensuing battle was defeated and ordered his troops to lay down their arms and surrender. The British Colonel refused to accept their surrender and ordered his troops to kill the defenseless Americans, resulting in a massacre of almost all. From that time on, "Tarleton's Quarter" became the by-word to describe the relentless slaughter of surrendered and helpless men. That affair extinguished the last flickering flame of resistance in South Carolina at the time. British power throughout the state was thoroughly established. General Clinton went back to New York with about one-third of his troops, leaving Lord Charles Cornwallis and a mixed force of British, German and Tory troops, about 8,300 rank and file, in the South.