Is the movie the Patriot accurate about how the Americans won against the British?

Did the Americans use guerilla warfare to win ? I know it is a Hollywood movie but I always thought the Americans stood toe to toe with the British. Linear warfare was frowned upon by the Americans as silly though.

 

Yes, and no.

It is said the shooting war started on Commons Green of Lexington, Mass. The myth is that the irregular troops (minutemen) stood toe-to-toe against the British regulars. In reality was the irregulars were quickly beaten by a single volley by the British. Then, after that, the Amercans fought an "indian style" skirmish upon the British as they matched back to canp in Boston, firing from cover with their greater-ranged rifles, and able to claim a weak victory.

For the next months whenever the Americans attempted to stand regular faceing regular they lost. It was only when an irregular raid on partying troops in Trenton, New Jersey, that the Americans under Washington could claim another weak victory.

 

Yes that is basically what the movie shows. They resort to guerilla warfare instead of standing toe to toe with the British.

 

Woah, hold on there, buckaroo. The rebels (Washington et al) tried to fight a "gentleman's war" against the professional soldiers of the British. They usually did a poor job of it. I am afraid the use of "indian tactics" was more the exception rather than the rule.

Remember George Washington and most of his high officers had served in the British-lead mlitia. It was there they learned most of what they knew of the art and science of warfare.

 

I thought the movie depicted the British as a bit more brutal than they actually were. They had some mean guys over there like Banastre Tarleton (They called him the 'Butcher') who the antagonist was based off of, but nobody was going around burning down entire towns.

There's also a joke, if that movie showed the people reloading then it would be 10 hours long

But yeah other than that and a few other minor inaccuracies (like the British uniforms in that area being green in real life), it shows the big picture of what happened.

 

Conovy, I spent a summer being a tour guide. We regularly fired flintlocke muskets of the Revolutionary War Era. Since they were are smoothbore they could easily be fired at the rate of 3 shots per minute. You are thinking of hunting rifles. Those are much slower, but made up in greater range and accuracy.

Most soldiers in the British Army of the time wore the traditional red coat. There were exceptions such as the Rifle Regiments (yes, some Tommies did carry rifles during that war).

 

You might be right with the muskets, and we're both half right about the uniforms. I just looked it up and it turns out that it was just the loyalists who wore the green uniforms.

 

Look for a book on the British Army in North America during the American Revolution. It goes a long way toward dispelling many of the myths about the way the war was fought. It is With Zeal and Bayonets Only by Matthew Spring. Also, for more information from historians about the Revolution, please visit this website http://allthingsliberty.com/ There is quite a bit of very good information generated by a lot of historians on that site.

 

I loved the movie, but that being said it was beautiful in its own way. I think linear warfare was just smart thinking. While the British had pride in their warfare and showed a force to be reckoned with.

 

From what I have read the movie is very inaccurate to true events. I know Cracked.com is a comedy site but they usually source their articles with citations.#3 on this list is relevant to this topic, but the rest of the article is an interesting read about common Revolutionary War misconceptions:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20306_5-myths-about-revolutionary-war-everyone-believes.html

Then again who expected a Hollywood movie to be the bastion of truth? It's a good popcorn flick with some neat costumes

 

It's pretty much movie time with some reality thrown in. The surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown was true and the reasons for his surrender are true. Even some of the dates and places were true but beyond that everything else was sensationalized.
Another war movie M.G. did," Braveheart," was the same way. There was a William Wallace in Scottish history who fought for Scotlands right to be its own country. Beyond that, it to was a great movie.

 

One of the reasons that America won the war was that we learned to fight from the "Indians" and the British Redcoats insisted on making good targets of their selves fighting against people who had better sense and accurate rifles. Of course, they also were thousands of miles from home in a hostile country. Napoleon and Hitler made the same mistake against Russia.
I haven't seen the movie, so I wonder if they forgot the important role that African Americans played in the war.

 

Yes, the African Americans did play a large part, but most of them were cheated out of what they thought was their freedom move.
The British promised land and money if the slaves fought for them and we know how that turned out.
The anglo American side had a little twist to it. A lot of the slave owners were fighting for their own freedom, and took their "property" with them to fight. Some slaves were even promised their freedom if they fought on the side of the colonists. Very few of the slaves, from my understanding, were actually granted the promise of freedom.

 

Don't forget that there were many free African Americans, even in the South. Many were either rich or at least prosperous. And a significant number of slaves were not unhappy with their lives and were loyal to their putative owners. Francis Marion's personal servant was also one of the most important of his soldiers, as was often the case. There were also many slaves who were mistreated, but the history of African Americans is one of a people who have met much success despite serious obstacles. We need to talk more about those successes and the posiitive contributions they have made, not just dwell on the negatives.

 

Corollary to this discussion, I just watched an episode of the old TV show from the 60s, COMBAT! I almost soiled myself with all the errors these supposedly combat-trained soldiers made in the course of the show. I know there are limitations imposed on the situation by the presence of the film camera, and having to block out the shots, but it was as if no one had any sence of personal security.

Any cinema or television show is going to suffer something due to filming and timing requirements. But they really needed a technical advisor.

 

I have been on a few movie and made for tv movie sets and can tell you that some shows care more about accuracy than others. What is good is when they care about accuracy and showmanship both. Historical shows, especially when dealing with a subject dear to the hearts of the intended audience, need to be particularly accurate. Historical fiction still needs to be true to the historical setting. The city of Williamsburg has several very good films. I believe these are available online.

 

I think a majority of it was true. I had always read that militia usually broke rank and fled, so I don't know that it represents an accurate detail of all militia, but I am sure some were as brave as this. I would like to know if the British were as barbaric as they imply? The scene where the militiamen find the dead little boy and his mother, and the father commits suicide, comes to mind. Did they really burn churches with people inside, and kill children?

 

No, primalclaws, the British did not. There may have been isolated cases of bad behavior here and there beyond what was militarily permissible in that conflict, but they were not widespread and not sanctioned at all by the commanders. Now, the Native Americans on the other hand were a completely different story. But then again, the whites could be just as cruel if not more so towards the Native Americans. What should be known is that this was a war and it was not a lily white conflict with clearly delineated sides. People had to make decisions on what side to take and then on what to do.

The movie is actually a large amalgamation of people and battles. The thing to remember about movies is that they are made to make money. The accuracy of the story is secondary to constructing a story people will watch. History cannot be learned through watching films solely. The elements of the film must be broken down and placed in their proper timeframe and context so as to understand what actually happened instead of what the film depicts as its story. Films are primarily driven by character conflict, and that conflict is often created, displayed, and resolved in two or so hours in film. Real life does not work that way and neither does history.

Films seek to create a clear division between good guy/bad guy. History on the other hand is more often than not tremendous shades of gray with no good guys or bad guys. Film generalizes elements of the past and the reality is people in the past made their decisions based on their interests, wants, needs, or beliefs. Those are often alien to us today because our world is nothing like the world of the past at any point. The farther back in time you go the more alien the past is. Film has to show the past in modern terms so the viewer can relate to it. More often that not, actual history is weird to people because it does not fit into modern terms or concepts.

That said, I would show The Patriot in my America on Screen I class because it is entertaining and can be used as a platform to develop real history in order to contrast it against the movie. I teach film history at the college level and usually am teaching AoS II which is from 1930 to today. In fact, I'm giving the final for this semester tomorrow.

 

The American forces were generally not dedicated to the concept of standing around in bright red uniforms in neat rows of targets. We had learned warfare techniques from "native Americans", and we were fighting for our homes. Incidentally, many of the American troops were of African descent, and many of those fought while slaves. I bet some of them were undocumented immigrants.

 

The British didn't stand around in long orderly rows either after Bunker Hill. They fought very well and in many cases defeated the Americans in open battle. The majority of British defeats occurred due to logistical problems and a complete inability of British planners to fully understand the immense size and difficulty of maintaining large forces in North America. Remember, those armies were tiny compared to Civil War armies. Washington never had 20,000 men under his command at one time. The British pulled almost half of their manpower out of the North American army and sent them to the West Indies when they declared war on the French in 1778. That right there indicated the value they had on the American colonies.

They also were misled as to the number of loyalists in America as well. That fantasy of massive loyalist support resulted in the losses of the British armies in the Saratoga campaign and Cornwallis' Southern campaign which ended at Yorktown. The British troops fought extremely well, but in the end were undone by the immense logistical problems involved in supplying an army across the ocean. Toss in the monumentally ignorant decision of Howe to capture Philadelphia instead of marching to link up with Burgoyne along the Hudson and that was that.

Also, one quarter of Washington's American troops at Yorktown were black. The French officers noted this and wrote it down.