"3rd Virginia Detachment" Flag Shirt

"3rd Virginia Detachment" Flag

The "3rd Virginia Detachment" banner captured by Banastre Tarlton in 1780 - based on the surviving example retained by the Tarlton Family until 2006.

Colonel Abraham Buford led a force of between 350 and 380 Virginian Continentals—the 3rd Virginia Detachment (composed of the 7th Virginia Regiment, two companies of the 2nd Virginia Regiment and an artillery detachment with two six-pounders)—to assist the Patriot forces in the Siege of Charleston. Before arriving, they learned that the city had already been captured by the British, and they turned back to Virginia.

However, British Colonel Banastre Tarleton heard that South Carolina's Patriot Governor John Rutledge was traveling with Buford. Anxious to capture Rutledge, Tarleton pursued with a force of roughly 230 men, consisting of 130 Legion dragoons, 100 Mounted British Legion infantry, and a three-pounder cannon. In the event, only an advance force of 60 dragoons from the 17th Light Dragoons and the British Legion cavalry, 60 mounted infantry from the British Legion, and an additional flanking force of 30 British Legion dragoons and some infantry actually engaged in the main attack.

The detachment was effectively destroyed in detail.

The flag pattern is also nearly identical to that described by Major Jonathan Gostelowe, however based on the timing of the assessment of the flags, it is likely that they were two different flags of a nearly identical pattern. The beaver design is nearly identical to that found on Continental currency.

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"3rd Virginia Detachment" Flag Shirt