Cromwell did not slaughter innocents. Those he killed in Drogheda were soldiers, with whom he was fighting. If the army within the walls had surrendered, then all the soldiers would have been spared; but they refused, and so Cromwell behaved as any other General would have done in his situation in that period. The citizens in Drogheda were left alone. The reason he is in my list of heroes is that he pushed through a republic when other men would have stopped well short by making a compromise with King Charles, or else deposing Charles and getting another monarch to replace him, probably a foreigner. Focusing so intently on Drogheda does not give us the full picture of the man especially when Drogheda is so misrepresented.