SEARCH SITE
VIRGINIA LAW PORTAL
- Code of Virginia
- Virginia Administrative Code
- Constitution of Virginia
- Charters
- Authorities
- Compacts
- Uncodified Acts
- RIS Users (account required)
SEARCHABLE DATABASES
- Bills & Resolutions
session legislation - Bill Summaries
session summaries - Reports to the General Assembly
House and Senate documents - Legislative Liaisons
State agency contacts
ACROSS SESSIONS
- Subject Index: Since 1995
- Bills & Resolutions: Since 1994
- Summaries: Since 1994
Developed and maintained by the Division of Legislative Automated Systems.
2006 SESSION
068328428WHEREAS, four battle flags, three from a Virginia battle, were captured in 1779 and 1780 during the Revolutionary War by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton; and
WHEREAS, until recently, the flags have hung in Hampshire, England, at the home of Captain Christopher Tarleton Fagan, the great-great-great-great nephew of Colonel Tarleton; and
WHEREAS, Captain Fagan, a former Grenadier Guards officer, claims that the flags have been in his family for 225 years, but he can no longer afford to insure them because of their enormous value; and
WHEREAS, the flags are scheduled to be auctioned at Sotheby's in New York on "Flag Day," June 14, 2006, and are expected to bring between $4 million and $10 million; seldom, if ever, have flags of such historical importance and rarity been sold at public auction; and
WHEREAS, only about 30 American revolutionary battle flags survive, and in most cases, only fragments of those flags remain and are preserved and exhibited in museums; and
WHEREAS, the four flags captured by Colonel Tarleton and owned by Captain Fagan remain in excellent condition, bear the emblem of their infantry or cavalry regiment, and are well-documented historically; and
WHEREAS, one of the four flags was captured from a Connecticut cavalry regiment in Westchester County, New York, on July 2, 1779; and
WHEREAS, on May 29, 1780, the three Virginia flags were captured in a controversial battle on the North Carolina-South Carolina line at Waxhaws, where Tarleton's troops crushed Colonel Abraham Buford’s force of about 350 Continentals, consisting of the 3rd Virginia Regiment and two companies of the 2nd Virginia Regiment; and
WHEREAS, the facts of what happened after Buford’s regiment raised a flag of surrender at Waxhaw are disputed--Americans contended that Colonel Tarleton ordered the slaughter of more than 100 Virginia soldiers who had already surrendered; while Colonel Tarleton maintained that his Loyalist troops ran amok when they believed he had been killed after the truce was declared; and
WHEREAS, Colonel Tarleton’s alleged conduct during his command of the battle came to symbolize British cruelty in the Revolutionary War and earned him the epithet “Bloody Ban or “The Butcher”; and
WHEREAS, after the British surrender at Yorktown, Colonel Tarleton, with the four flags, returned home to England as a hero; and
WHEREAS, Colonel Tarleton’s military exploits were commemorated by Sir Joshua Reynolds in a famous portrait of the colonel painted in 1782, in which the captured American flags appear at his feet; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, That Captain Christopher Tarleton Fagan, the great-great-great-great nephew of Colonel Tarleton, be encouraged to return the four American Revolutionary War flags captured by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton in 1779 and 1780 to their rightful homes in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Connecticut; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates transmit a copy of this resolution to J.E.B. Stuart, IV, president of the Sons of the Revolution-Virginia Society, and to Patricia Hatfield Mayer, regent of the Virginia Daughters of the American Revolution, in order that they may further disseminate copies of this resolution to their respective constituents so that they may be apprised of the sense of the General Assembly of Virginia in this matter.