I just watched "Lawless" and there's a pretty brutal tar and feathering scene.
The guy survived, but it looked pretty bad.
So would people survive getting tar and feathered and not be terribly scarred? I imagine there would be burn scarring all over your body.
Historically, the word tar tended to refer to pine tar, which has a much lower melting point than modern petroleum based tar, around 55^0 C as opposed to well over 100^0 C. Burns would still have been likely, but usually not fatal
I don't think that guy survived. Did they show him after Forrest found him on the porch?