DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — Col. James Tarleton, Fannin County, Texas. Now, some men ride the wave of history right when it crests.
James Tarleton was the kind of man who started paddling just a hair too late — and still ended up in the thick of it. Born August 4, 1789, way up in Kentucky, Tarleton heard the call comin' out of Texas in the fall of 1835. Independence was the word on every tongue, and he wasn't about to sit idle.
He raised himself a company of thirty-six riflemen — thirty-six men willing to shoulder a rifle and march toward a fight that wasn't even their own yet. By November of 1835, that company was moving, heading south and west toward Texas. Here's where the story gets that particular Texas flavor of irony.
By the time Tarleton and his thirty-six riflemen arrived, the city of San Antonio had already been liberated. The door they'd come to kick open was already swinging. You can imagine the feeling — all that fire in the belly, all those miles from Kentucky, and the first act was already over.
But James Tarleton wasn't the type to turn around. He stayed. And when April 21, 1836 came around — San Jacinto — Tarleton was there.
Now, here's the detail worth pausin' on: he was an officer. Rank and all the standing that comes with it. But at San Jacinto, he fought in the ranks.
Right there alongside the enlisted men, in the thick of a victory that would shake loose an entire republic. There's a shadow over all of this, though, and it deserves to be spoken plainly. Back in Kentucky, in 1835 — the same year Tarleton set out for Texas — his wife, Nancy Price, died.
He left carrying that grief the whole way down. After the fighting was done, Tarleton put down roots in Fannin County. He brought his son, Robert Price Tarleton, born in 1833, and that's where they stayed.
Robert Price Tarleton would live until 1897. James Tarleton himself lived until April 4, 1861. A man who raised thirty-six riflemen, rode hard toward a fight, arrived a moment late, and still found his place in the victory.
Fannin County remembers him.
What the marker says
(August 4, 1789 - April 4, 1861) In the cause of independence, raised company of 36 riflemen in his native Kentucky, starting for Texas November 1835. City of San Antonio was liberated by time they arrived. Although an officer, Tarleton fought in the ranks in the victory at San Jacinto, April 21, 1836. Col. Tarleton settled in Fannin County with son, Robert Price Tarleton (1833-1897). Tarleton's wife, Nancy Price, had died in Kentucky in 1835.