Historical Facts And Inaccuracies In The Patriot
The movie The Patriot directed by Roland Emmerich is a historical movie that features on a soldier who is a father of seven children during the American Revolutionary War. This is 18th century in America, thirteen colonies were successively joining the war against the British. Empire. Benjamin Martin who suffers from Post-traumatic Disorder due to his savage experience from the Indian-French war lives in a farm peacefully was against the opening of the war against the opening of the war. However, South Carolina colony that he lives was forced to choose whether to open the battle. On the other hand, Gabriel, Martin’s oldest son, has decided to join the Continental Army without getting approval of his father. His second oldest son Thomas was also hoping to join the military.
Two years later, the Britain’s threat was coming to South Carolina, and Gabriel comes back home with other Continental solders wounded. Martin takes care of both of them. The leader of British militia Tavington comes to his place and burns Martin’s house and kidnaps Gabriel as a hostage. During this invasion, Martin’s son Gabriel dies. He orders his other two sons to bear a rifle and fight back. His guerrilla tactic was effective, and he kills British soldiers. However, during this rescue, he loses his son.
This incident kindles Martin’s anger of revenge, he joins the Continental army to take the revenge of his son. At the Battle of Cowpens, Martin encounters Tavington in person again. Finally, he stabs Tavington to death and takes the revenge of his sons.
Martin’s fight against British army using guerrilla tactic is spectacle. I think this movie was a major success as a heroic movie. However, there might be some inaccuracies from a historical point of view.
For example, both Marin and Francis Marion, one of the models of Martin, used guerrilla tactics as well, and Marion was called “Fox Swamp.” Some people say that “Marion was slaughtering Indians for fun and regularly raping his female slaves” (The Guardian). However, I could not find the evidence that he enjoyed massacring Indians and raping slaves. To me it seems like that Marion was sincere man to me from his comment “Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing very heartily at the curling flames, ... But to me it appeared a shoking sight.” when he returned from the Indian seizure.
One of the huge differences from the fact was about Battle of Cowpens. It is clear that this battle had a huge influence on the outcome of war. However, the actual battle was not as dramatic as in the movie. The battle was actually totally one sided by the Continental army. Just only 12 of Continental soldiers died while 110 British soldiers were killed during the battle (Pearson,2015). Even though the Continental army have dominated the battle, Tarlton, the leader of British army of this battle and the model of Tavington, managed to survive after this battle while Tavington was killed in the movie. He lived at the age of 78. The other fictional fact about this battle is that British army did not have artillery in the actual battle as they had in the movie (New River Notes).
On the other hand, overall, I believe this movie introduces audiences some of the major historical facts. I think movie can be used as an introduction to the history of the American Revolutionary War because I believe that this movie provides us opportunity to think about history and war. For example, many historians say that the scene of the Battle of Camden was accurate. This size of the battle was small and finished quickly. However, regardless of the size of battle, people can die and wounded.
The guns that are used during this war was accurately picked as well. The muskets this time lacked the accuracy. The mechanism was also outdated. therefore, soldiers had to wipe the barrel and replace the bullet by hand each time after they shot. This scene was really effective to tell audiences what sort of a weapon they had to use during this time. At first, this was really shocking to me that they do not try to dodge enemies but just standing in lines because the way they fight did not resemble to modern war tactics at all. However, due to its lack of accuracy, soldiers had to make the formation as in the movie so then the bullets that are shot will be gathered in the same area.
Even this tough heroic soldier Martin suffers because of the PTSD from the French-Indian war. This is one of the early American history of taboos. It is not uncommon to massacre and rape innocent people in the time of war. In personal level, I am not sure if that is justifiable or not even thought it is a part of human nature. However, I believe that what happens during the war is not appreciated from the society. I think the scene Martin struggles from a memory what he had done during the French-Indian war give us great information what a war can make things happen.
Even though the American Revolutionary War happened about 300 years ago, The outcome of this has huge impact on us. Not only America may not existed if Continental army did not win, but this war partly had a great impact on the abolition of the slavery. This movie mentions about freeing the Black slaves who served for the Continental army. As most of people know, Southern states refused to free the slaves and that caused the American Civil war while the Britain freed them relatively immediately.
In conclusion, the movie the Patriot is, overall, a good movie even though this movie contains some of the inaccuracies. This movie provides us historical information such as the issue of war and the racial problem, with exciting story and battle scenes. The United States that we live right now did not start right now.
