I
recently watched the movie Alone Yet Not Alone.
It is set in the French and Indian War and follows the journey of a
young girl captured in an Indian raid.
She lives with the Indians for four years until she escapes and reaches
safety at Fort Pitt. While much of the
clothing and the scenery is visually beautiful, this movie unfortunately
contains two historical errors. I will
deal with the first one in this post and the second one later. This is not a full movie review, but perhaps
I will (later) give a brief overview of what I thought of the movie itself.
In
Alone yet not Alone, the British regulars are portrayed as lacking in hand to
hand combat skills and having no concept of teamwork. Thankfully, this portrayal is confined to one
scene because all other fight sequences are between the Indians, colonists, and
French. Their depiction of the British
soldiers is as follows
*Spoiler warning*
The heroine of the story named Barbara Leininger
has finally reached British-held Fort Pitt in the year 1759. She and her three companions call across the
Ohio River for help. To
investigate them, a British-manned bateau is launched from Fort Pitt. After ascertaining that Barbara and her
friends are true refugees and not decoys to lure them into ambush, they
disembark to conduct them to Fort Pitt.
Suddenly
they are attacked by a lone Indian named Hannawoa, who shoots one Brit with his
musket and charges headlong toward the rest.
They respond with a scattered volley of shots and charge Hannawoa one at
a time. The first redcoat swings his
musket butt like a club but is dispatched by Hannawoa. Two other soldiers run up to their foe
without attempting to injure him with their muskets (which oddly enough do not
have bayonets fixed).
 |
Left: a painting of a grenadier of the 46th Regiment
Right: a photo of a private soldier, possibly of the 46th |
The
British officer draws a pistol, shoots Hannawoa in the shoulder and draws his
sword, but is defeated. Now Barbara
fumbles in the belt of the wounded officer, draws another pistol and shoots
Hannawoa. As he hits the earth, a
British soldier skewers him with a bayonet.
*Spoiler
warning ends*
This,
then, is their portrayal of the British soldiers of the French and Indian War,
with no group cohesion and not generally armed with bayonets. How does it compare with history?
Author
Stuart Reid is an expert on British infantrymen of the 1700s. He says: “…The individual soldier probably
found it more easy and effective to simply butt-stroke rather than to stab his
opponent in a hand-to-hand skirmish.
Contemporary bayonet fighting drills consequently reflected and stressed
the need for soldiers to act in concert rather than individually.” (1, emphasis mine)
In
his attack in Quebec in 1759, General James Wolfe stressed the importance of
the bayonet: “The light infantry of this army are to have their bayonets, as
the want of ammunition may at some times be supplied by that weapon, and
because no man should leave his post, under pretence that all his cartridges
were fired. In most attacks of the night
it must be remembered that bayonets are preferable to fire.” (2)
 |
This is the red-with-blue-lapel-and-cuff
uniform discussed in the text. |
Having
established that British soldiers were armed with the bayonet and knew how to
use it, let us look briefly at group cohesion.
The redcoats in the movie are a detachment of 6 men drawn from two
regiments: the 46th and the 60th Royal Americans. (3)
“Nothing will make a soldier like service,” said
Sir William Erskine (4) in 1776 and the 46th and 60th
Royal Americans were seasoned campaigners.
In 1758, the 46th and 60th had participated in the
Battle of Fort Carillon (5). In 1759,
they were involved in a campaign to capture Fort Niagara, where they decisively
defeated a force of French soldiers, couriers du bois and Indians at the Battle
of La Belle Famille. (6) Because of
their previous battlefield experiences, these men would be very competent soldiers.
Considering
their previous service and their distinct victory over the Indians at the
Battle of La Belle Famille in 1759, it is unwarranted (to say the least) to
depict these tough regulars as incompetents.
While the Indians were excellent warriors, by 1759, the British too had
learned the ways of woodland warfare.
Why should one side be portrayed as nearly invincible while the other is
made up of bumbling buffoons?
I’ll
end with an apropos quote from Timothy J. Todish and Todd E. Harburn: “In the
end, both the Indians and the British were just doing their jobs for the cause
they believed in.” (7)
pg. 38, Like Hungry Wolves: Culloden Moor 16 April 1746 by Stuart Reid
(London: Withrow & Greene Ltd, 1994)
pg. 16 Quebec 1759 by Stuart Reid (Oxford: Osprey 2003)
This is a tricky point. Their specific combination of plain white
lace on blue lapels and cuffs is closest to the 2nd Coldstream
Guards. The Coldstreams, however, were
nowhere near North America, as they were in London in 1759! The 60th Royal Americans were
stationed in North America in various detachments, but their blue lapels had no
lace. I have decided to identify them as
the 60th despite the white lace.
pg. 120, With Zeal and With Bayonets Only by Matthew H. Spring (University
of Oklahoma: Norman, 2010)
-
Because the dating in Alone Yet
Not Alone is not explicitly given, these soldiers could either be garrisoning
Fort Pitt as the expedition to take Fort Niagara assembles; alternately,
Niagara could be in British hands at this point because it surrendered on July
25, 1759.
pg. 107, The British Military and the Pontiac Indian Uprising of 1763-1764 by
Timothy J. Todish and Todd E. Harburn (Fleischmanns: Purple Mountain Press,
2006)
