Gale Fuller mentioned the Mel Gibson film "The Patriot,"
which I too enjoyed as it is terrific entertainment but as
history it is total bunk.  It completely misrepresents the
African-American experience in the Revolution in the South.
The black soldier in the film says he will get his freedom
in exchange for fighting, a plan that was indeed proposed
for South Carolina and Georgia but was hooted down by the
legislatures there.  Those states financed their war effort
partly by selling slaves they confiscated from
loyalists--so the blacks financed freedom but not for
themselves.  A number of historians pointed out that the
scene where a building is set afire by the British with
people inside is based not on the Revolution but on a Nazi
atrocity of WWII.  Closer to home, devotees of Robert E.
Lee were outraged to see an image of his birthplace,
Stratford Hall, used as the British headquarters.  History
can be made entertaining but such efforts are not always
accurate; the problem is that people believe what they see
on the screen is the truth.
Henry Wiencek
Charlottesville

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