Waxhaw Massacre
- When
- 1780
- Where
- near Lancaster, South Carolina; the pursuit toward the Waxhaws
- Episodes
- 3
On May 29, 1780, near Lancaster, South Carolina, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton's British Legion overtook and routed Colonel Abraham Buford's Virginian Continentals in the engagement remembered as the Waxhaws Massacre, with heavy Patriot casualties among men who had offered to surrender.
Episodes
- Tarleton's Pursuit of Buford
Cornwallis, unable to keep pace with Buford, dispatched Tarleton on May 27 with dragoons, mounted infantry, and a cannon to overtake the Patriots.
- Battle of Waxhaws
Tarleton's Loyalist force overtook Buford's Continentals near Lancaster, South Carolina, on May 29, 1780, killing surrendering American soldiers.
- Casualties at the Waxhaws
Buford's command suffered devastating losses: of 420 soldiers, 104 escaped, 113 were killed, 150 were injured, and 53 were captured.
Background and detail
Background. Following the 1778 French intervention, which widened the Revolutionary War into a global conflict, Britain pursued a southern strategy beginning with the capture of Savannah in December 1778. In 1780 General Sir Henry Clinton brought an army south and took Charleston on May 12, 1780, after a siege, setting the stage for the Waxhaws engagement.
Opposing Forces. Colonel Abraham Buford commanded roughly 380 Virginian Continentals of the 3rd Virginia Detachment, a mix of new recruits and veterans, plus an artillery detachment with two six-pounders. Tarleton's pursuing force comprised 170 light dragoons drawn from the British Legion and 17th Light Dragoons, 100 mounted British Legion infantry, and a three-pounder cannon.
Aftermath and Legacy. The engagement became known as the Waxhaws Massacre or Buford's Massacre, remembered for the killing of surrendering American soldiers. Later in 1780, backcountry militia fought Loyalist forces at Musgrove Mill on August 18 and decisively defeated Major Patrick Ferguson's Loyalist army at Kings Mountain on October 7.
People involved
- Banastre Tarleton · Lieutenant Colonel commanding the British Legion and Loyalist forces
- Abraham Buford · Colonel commanding the Patriot Virginian Continental force
Sources
- Battle of Waxhaws Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-26
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.