Quotes About Redcoats

But the question made no sense to the bulk of the troops, who regarded instinctive obedience to orders and ready acceptance of subordination within a military hierarchy as infringements on the very liberty they were fighting for. They saw themselves as invincible, not because they were disciplined soldiers like the redcoats but because they were patriotic, liberty-loving men willing to risk their lives for their convictions.

The myth of violated innocence meant that the rebel stockpiling of war supplies in recent months must remain obscure, along with details about the colony's deft, robust call to arms. A narrative congealed, and with it a brilliant propaganda stratagem: Gage was the aggressor; redcoats fired first; helpless civilians had been slaughtered.

That's the noise that made the Redcoats run! Mr. Paddock said to Father. Maybe, Father said, tugging his beard. But it was muskets that won the Revolution. And don't forget it was axes and plows that made this country. That's so, come to think of it, Mr. Paddock said.

Poor dull Concord. Nothing colorful has come through here since the Redcoats.

His men howled with him. They were caught up in Baird's madness. At this hour, under the fire of the sun and emboldened by the arrack and rum they had drunk in their long wait in the trenches, the redcoats and sepoys had become gods of war. They gave death with impunity as they followed a warmaddened Scotsman down an enemy wall that was sticky with blood. Baird would have his city or else he would die in its dust.

The Hollywood version of the War of Independence is a straightforward fight between heroic Patriots and wicked, Nazi-like Redcoats. The reality was quite different. This was indeed a civil war which divided social classes and even families. And the worst of the violence did not involve regular British troops, but was perpetrated by rebel colonists against their countrymen who remained loyal to the crown.

First the Duke of Cumberland's Redcoats hunted down the clansmen who had escaped from Culloden. Prisoners were treated so badly that they died in their hundreds. The survivors were sent to the American plantations as slave labour.

And then it came to me, as one of the redcoats, knocked flat by a fleeing Scot, rose and shook his fist theatrically after the horses. Of course. A film! I shook my head at my own slowness. They were shooting a costume drama of some sort, that was all. One of those Bonnie-Prince-in-the-heather sorts of things, no doubt. Well.

Boston lay in shambles. During the winter months, shivering redcoats had chopped down trees in the Common and ripped apart old buildings for firewood. The Flucker mansion had been looted. Other homes and shops were abandoned, crumbling, ruinous reminders of Boston's pre-Revolutionary splendor.

Do you men still know how to fight?" he (GW) roared. A primal cry erupted around him. "Then fall in and show those redcoats over there" — he pointed back to the advancing British — "how Americans can stand and fight for their freedom!