The Patriot Movie - Essay Example

The Continental army puts him in charge of the Colonial Militia. Despite being few, untrained, and unorganized, they managed to achieve several victories including a major success in the Battle of Cowpens leading to the ultimate freedom of America. It is critical to assess how a small number of American rebels used various fighting tactics to defeat the relatively huge, well-trained, and well-armed British Regular Army.

As Martin knew that an ill-experienced militia was not able to beat the British army in open battles, he had to train his men for rather different fighting tactics. Martin while talking to his son said that “Going muzzle-to-muzzle with Redcoats in open fields, it is madness” (The Patriot). The militia trained by Martin and Major Jean Villeneuve of the French army mostly employed Guerilla warfare tactics to fight the British. These tactics helped at damaging British supply lines and routes, recover goods, and harass the enemy soldiers effectively. During their very first enemy attack, the militia was shown to be hidden in the fields, trees, and behind the rocks to take them suddenly before they could even react. They attacked from all sides individually leaving British soldiers with no other option but to die or flee.

The effectiveness of Guerilla tactics is most evident at the beginning of the story when Martin along with his two sons rescues Gabriel from the Redcoats. He took full advantage of the topography, shrubs, and trees killing a good number of heavily armed soldiers and officers. John Billing later in the film remarked about that as “There is a story going around about how some twenty Redcoats got killed by a ghost or some damn thing, carried a Cherokee tomahawk” (The Patriot).

One of these surprise attacks is well depicted in the scene over the bridge when the militia captures the personal correspondence of Lord Cornwallis in a brutal ambush. In response, the British army burns down Charlotte’s House, and then the Church along with all the town people. In another surprise attack, militia destroyed a big supply ship carrying large quantities of arms, ammunition, and uniforms in front of their top military leadership. These small but valuable achievements served as a beacon of hope for the rest of the Americans who had lost everything in this war.

Despite losing their lives and families, rebels continued attacks. The military tactics adopted by rebels were unacceptable to the British and they labeled them as being uncivilized. They had no experience in tackling such battle tactics before and their army was not trained for such unorganized wars against a hidden enemy. They were even not aware of their whereabouts as rebels were following a fight-and-flight strategy. From the British point of view, rebels should have fought face to face like regular armies to decide the war.

However, Martin was well aware of their weaknesses. Rebels always awaited opportunities and fully availed of them shattering the enemy’s infrastructure as well as morale. They regarded the brutal actions of Colonel William Tavington as more uncivilized than theirs. Finally, along with the continental army, they fought a face-to-face battle at Cowpens. Though British officers held rebels in far lesser regard, they played a winning role in that battle too by the unpredictable strategy suggested by Martin.