Chapter 21

(On the trail of the war criminal Tarleton in the cause of justice)

General Arnold had given me a much needed clue as to the whereabouts of the criminal Tarleton keeping a low profile after his despicable murder of innocent civilians simply for the reason of not swearing allegiance to the King.

The shifty little bastard was infamous for his public interrogations of female detainees rounded up on the tips from the back-stabbing Tory female population. It was pure entertainment to see the Patriot females paraded down the middle off the street past the insult-throwing enlisted rabble and then stripped of all clothing before being whipped like criminals and then publicly raped in front of their former friends and neighbors.

The small towns and villages along the shore in Virginia and Maryland had precious few male residents due to the demands from both sides for local fighters to supplement their numbers on the field of battle. The Virginia militia was a motley bunch with a number of redcoat hating Indians in their midst. They had witnessed entire villages wiped out by the Hessian irregulars on orders from the British high command along the Virginia shore.

Most of the regular British troops in the south were disappointed to be in such a “Rustic” colony in comparison to the advanced colonies in the north with famous cities like New York City and Boston. They had held full sway in Boston almost from the start of the war and were now fairly well ousted from that great city by the encroaching Patriots.

They had also been driven from Philadelphia by the forces of General George Washington and that had led to General Arnold’s assignment to the city as a temporary administrator as his leg healed for assignment to field duty.

It was a center of confusion in those days with the mixed society of Patriot inclined civilians and the followers of the King. Poor Arnold had his Tory leaning wife and his family of staunch Patriots to contend with and he gave lip service to both in diplomatic efforts to mediate a truce of sorts.

I had noted that the meanness of fighting in the south was not as visible in the north with the possible exception of some incidents of savagery with the treatment of prisoners of war in the area around the New York City area including the butchering of an entire complement of Maryland volunteers in the area of what is now present-day Queens.

The British support elements had several infamous troopships converted into prisons for the tending of prisoners of war or suspected captured civilians that had expressed lack of loyalty to the King. The percentages of demise from constant beatings and the ravages of disease instilled a sense of no hope on the part of incarcerated prisoners and only a limited few made it off the ships on their own two feet.

On the other hand, Washington had set up a well-organized center for the repatriation of enemy officers returned to British control under the stipulation they be sent back to England and not to participate in future fighting against the American Army. It was a European thing and not much liked by the Rebel forces but it sufficed to keep the troops under Washington from the mean-spirited treatment accorded by the British troops under Howe’s control.

It was a well-known fact that many of the enlisted prisoners switched sides rather than stay incarcerated and they fought on the side of the Patriots having little or no love of the leaders of the British Parliament and absolutely no loyalty to a disliked King.

On direct orders from Washington, I led two full troops of cavalry in hot pursuit of the fast moving cavalry units under Major Tarleton’s command and managed to corner a sizable grouping of the worst ones near a town called Newport near the shore. The had already hung a dozen or more Patriots in the town square and were ready to set a schoolhouse ablaze with a number of female Patriot females and children inside as an example to the deluded colonists that loyalty to the King was their only choice in future.

We literally caught them with their “pants down” as they were copulating right out in the open with a number of female townswomen gathered up just on the suspicion that their missing spouses were absent due to being under command of the traitorous General George Washington and his band of outlaws that declared they were an “Army” and committed serious crimes against the rule of the King.

The redcoats had left a trail of weeping women all along the settlements of the Maryland and the Virginia countryside bemoaning the gang-style rape of church-going women sometimes right in front of their crying children.

I knew it was the European way of subduing a rebellious populace and the British were especially attuned to the nasty business of making loyal followers of the female elements of the subjugated former Patriots.

It had worked well with the uneducated masses of less civilized societies but in America it was less than successful because the other side became just as callous in their treatment of Tory females under their control. It helped to accelerate the exodus of the Loyalists from the colonies to the safer environments of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and the northern reaches of the King controlled Canadian Provinces.

At the conclusion of our conflict with the raiders of British control, I allowed our Indians to slit the survivor’s throats and then take their scalps much to the delight of the raped and almost raped females of the quaint and quiet little town.

The ladies matched up with my men and offered them their only commodity ... themselves.

I was not all that enthused with that aspect as I did not want later reports indicate that the troop of General Washington took advantage of the women and I insisted that all copulation be in private behind closed doors and that in no case should children view the proceedings and get the wrong ideas about their mother’s behavior.