Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Truth is the first casualty in Hollywood's war,'' The Daily Telegraph chimed in.
Gibson plays the fictional Benjamin Martin, a reluctant rebel swept into the war when his family is threatened by King George III's nasty British Redcoats. The film's main villain is the bloodthirsty Col. William Tavington, leader of Britain's Green Dragoons, who in one scene shoots a child and in another rounds up screaming villagers, locks them in a church and torches them alive. Hollywood has a habit of taking away the character of notable English people and demonizing them,'' Liverpool Mayor Edwin Clein said. No evidence exists that Tarleton was involved in infanticide or any incidents such as the church arson and murders, said Scott Withrow, historian at South Carolina's Cowpens National Battlefield, where the Redcoats were defeated in 1781. As far as I know, it did not happen,'' said Withrow, though he noted that Tarleton had a reputation for brutality.