May 31, 2006

Gratuitous Revolutionary War Posting - "Bloody Ban" Update

A while back, I posted on the return of four Continental Army battle flags to Sotheby's by the descendant of the notorious British Dragoon who captured them, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton.

Well, Sotheby's has put one of them up for auction. The Irish Elk has a picture. Anybody interested in helping us Llamas make a bid should consider tossing some coin into the tip jar.

Oh, and just by way of clarification, I indulged in some anti-The Patriot ranting in my original post. There, I said that Mel Gibson's character was loosely based on that of Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion. This is true to a point, but his character is also based in part on General Dan Morgan, who defeated Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens. The movie makes such a mishmash of the actual history that setting the record straight gets a bit complicated. My apologies.

Posted by Robert at May 31, 2006 01:13 PM | TrackBack
Comments

The Gibson film was originally to be about "The Swamp Fox" until it was pointed out by an historian that old Fancis had not been a model slave owner back in the day (someone mentioned rape, etc.) So the film makers had to back pedal quickly away which is why we end up with a mish-mash of several people and he is portrayed as an 18th Century South Carolinian who has emancipated all his slaves,without anyone saying a word to him about it. That probably would have happened.

Posted by: Basil Seal at May 31, 2006 01:25 PM

Yes, well we can't have main characters that the modern American fails to identify and sympathize with completely. That would be like making a movie about medieval Scottland featuring Scotts without kilts.

Jeeze and other comments.

Posted by: Scuba at May 31, 2006 05:28 PM