re: I have heard that "The Patriot" is terribly inaccurate and offensive to the British

It is a very bad movie from the historical point of view.

Getting many points in history wrong, that being said it was a good movie until near 1/3 the way into the movie.


Just know this, the revolutionary war was not a nice war you see in most history books.

The British wanted to control the preachers in American even before the war, just as when Hitler came to power in 1933 and the take over of what could be preached in a church in Germany. When you see the point of freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights, this was one of the major issues.

During the war the British did burn some churches (but no one in them) and used churches to store supplies and placed horses in many. This was done to stop the news and ideas from going town to town. Many of the main preachers in American before the war had come from England and were very vocal in their support for American freedom, and to cut ties with England.