Moving rapidly, Tarleton and his men left Suffolk on July 9, and rode deep into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The complete expedition ended up being a 400 miles (640 km) trek that succeeded in raiding some military stores, although most of the targeted supplies had already been sent off to Nathanael Greene's Continental Army in South Carolina; Tarleton returned to Portsmouth on July 24.

[2] He then served in the southern army under General Greene, where he was reported to have killed 11 men during the May 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

No other sources are known to corroborate the events he describes; Tarleton, in his memoir, only generally mentions casualties that occurred during the expedition.

As the dragoon bent down to take his buckles, Francisco, who was unarmed, reached down and drew the man's sword from its scabbard.

[9] The version reprinted below (from Howe's 1852 edition) contains details not present in Francisco's own written accounts, including the presence nearby of Tarleton's main body, and an allegation of the tavernkeeper's assistance to the raiders.

While the British army were spreading havoc and desolation all around them, by their plundering and burnings in Virginia, in 1781, Francisco had been reconnoitring, and while stopping at the house of a Mr. V---, then in Amelia, now Nottoway county, nine of Tarleton's cavalry came up, with three negroes, and told him he was their prisoner.

Francisco, finding so favorable an opportunity to recover his liberty, stepped one pace in his rear, drew the sword with force from under his arm, and instantly gave him a blow across the scull.

'My enemy,' observed Francisco, 'was brave, and though severely wounded, drew a pistol, and, in the same moment that he pulled the trigger, I cut his hand nearly off.

(the man of the house) very ungenerously brought out a musket, and gave it to one of the British soldiers, and told him to make use of that.

All was hurry and confusion, which I increased by repeatedly hallooing, as loud as I could, "Come on, my brave boys; now's your time; we will soon dispatch these few, and then attack the main body!"

I intended to have avenged myself of V--- at a future day, but Providence ordained I should not be his executioner, for he broke his neck by a fall from one of the very horses.

There is a state historical marker commemorating the event; according to Mark Boatner's Landmarks of the American Revolution (1992 ed.