The Patriot

MARION: When?

ANNE: Late summer.

MARION: Congratulations.

ANNE: Thank you.

ANNE: Do you think Frances with an "e" is too manly a name for a girl?

MARION: No.

ANNE: Do you think Francis with an "i" is too womanly a name for a boy?

MARION: No.

ANNE: Good.

ANNE: I'm sorry we didn't give you more warning.

MARION: It's alright. I'm very happy for you.

ANNE: Next time we'll bring more blankets.

GABRIEL: That would be nice.

ANNE: Maybe we'll be lucky this winter and have just rain, no snow.

GABRIEL: That would be nice, too.

GABRIEL: If I'd known you were going to look like this, I never would have put ink in your tea.

ANNE: You call that a compliment?

GABRIEL: It's a start.

ANNE: I know who you are, Gabriel Marion. The last time I saw you, I was nine and you put ink in my tea.

GABRIEL: I... uh... that wasn't me, it was Samuel... I mean Nathan...

ANNE: It was you and it turned my teeth black for a month.

GABRIEL: Uh... uh... I...

MARION: What do you mean, old and ugly?

BILLINGS: You got me beat on both accounts.

MARION: The hell I do.

BILLINGS: He reminds me of you before you got old and ugly.

MARION: No, he takes after his mother...

BILLINGS: Personally, I'd prefer stupidity.

MARION: Pride will do.

BILLINGS: Well?

MARION: I've just been inside the mind of a genius. Lord Cornwallis knows more about war than I could in a dozen lifetimes.

BILLINGS: Cheerful news to greet the morn.

MARION: His victories at Charleston and Camden were perfect, strategically, tactically, logistically. But he has a weakness.

BILLINGS: Am I one of that sort?

MARION: You're the worst of that sort. You're the sort that gives that sort a bad name.

BILLINGS: I say we drink the wine, shoot the dogs, and use the papers for musket wadding.

MARION: His journals, letters, maps, books...

BILLINGS: You expect to hold Cornwallis with militia?

MARION: I expect to try.

BILLINGS: Trust you and Harry Lee. Remember that damned overland you two thought up in '62 to hit Fort Louis?

MARION: It worked. How many men can you raise?

BILLINGS: Not many. Dalton, Scott, they've got their reasons; Rev. Oliver, he believes in the cause; some of the young bucks; a few like me with nothing to lose... What about you? You've got a lot to lose.

BILLINGS: You got salt last week.

GABRIEL: Oh, right. Baking powder, we need baking powder.

BILLINGS: We've got plenty of baking powder. You went to Pembroke and got five pounds two weeks ago.

GABRIEL: I know him well enough?

BILLINGS: Don't fault him for having grown up on the frontier. It was a harder time and a harder place than you know.

BILLINGS: You don't know him very well, do you?

GABRIEL: He's my father.

GABRIEL: He shouldn't make light. That Redcoat should not have been killed.

BILLINGS: He's not making light.

MARION: Two pounds, fourteen ounces.

CHARLOTTE: Lovely.

MARION: Goodbye, Charlotte.

CHARLOTTE: Goodbye.

MARION: Excuse me?

CHARLOTTE: I said, I'm not my sister.

MARION: I know that.

CHARLOTTE: Do you?

MARION: Of course, I do.

CHARLOTTE: Very well, then.

CHARLOTTE: If you go, I'll care for them as if they were my own.

MARION: I'll leave in the morning with Gabriel.

MARION: How did this... how did I let this happen?

CHARLOTTE: You couldn't have known.

MARION: I should have known... once I would have... I used to be wary... and today I watched my son killed before my eyes... your sister civilized me and I damn myself for having let her...

CHARLOTTE: Thomas is dead but you've done nothing for which you should be ashamed.

MARION: I've done nothing and for that I am ashamed.

CHARLOTTE: And send us to war alongside Massachusetts.

MARION: Our governor is a bigger fool than I thought.

MARION: You look well, Charlotte.

CHARLOTTE: As do you.

MARION: They're from good stock on their mother's side.

CHARLOTTE: Thank you.

CONTINENTAL SERGEANT: We did.

TARLETON: With a lace table cloth?

TARLETON: You're surrendering.

CONTINENTAL SERGEANT: Yes, sir.

TARLETON: What unit?

CONTINENTAL SERGEANT: First Virginia Regulars under Colonel Hamilton.

TARLETON: Who cared for your wounds?

CORNWALLIS: Their names, ranks and posts?

MARION: They refused to give me their names. Their ranks are nine lieutenants, five captains, three majors and one fat colonel who called me a cheeky fellow. Their posts? We picked them up here-and-there last night.

CORNWALLIS: Very well, let us move on to...

MARION: Prisoner exchange.

CORNWALLIS: Sir?

MARION: You have eighteen of my men. I want them back.

CORNWALLIS: I do have eighteen criminals under sentence of death, but I hold no prisoners-of-war.

MARION: If that's your position, then eighteen of your officers will die. Nineteen, if you hang me with my men.

CORNWALLIS: What officers?

CORNWALLIS: Thank you.

MARION: Please accept my apology for not having done so sooner.

CORNWALLIS: Apology accepted. Now, on the matter of the specific targeting of officers during engagements, this is absolutely unacceptable.

MARION: That one is a bit more difficult.

CORNWALLIS: Certainly you must know that in civilized warfare, officers in the field must not be accorded inappropriate levels of hostile attention.

MARION: And what are inappropriate levels of hostile attention?

CORNWALLIS: Colonel, imagine the utter chaos that would result from un-led armies having at each other. There must be gentlemen in command to lead and, when appropriate, restrain their men.

MARION: Restrain them from the targeting of civilians, including women and children?

CORNWALLIS: That is a separate issue.

MARION: I consider them linked.

CORNWALLIS: I beg to differ. One is a command decision on your part. The other represents nothing more than the occasional over-exuberance of field officers attempting to carry out their duty in difficult circumstances.

MARION: As long as your soldiers attack civilians, I will order the shooting of your officers at the outset of every engagement. And my men are excellent marksmen.

CORNWALLIS: You are familiar with how these things are done. In fact, I would like to claim aggrieved status.

MARION: Very well, proceed, sir.

CORNWALLIS: First, you have in your possession certain belongings of mine, including clothing, private papers, furniture and personal effects of a non-military nature which I would like to have returned to me.

MARION: I will do so as soon as possible.

MARION: Shall we proceed?

CORNWALLIS: Let us. Unless you object, I would like to deem this meeting a formal negotiation and, as such, there are certain customary practices. Perhaps I could explain them to you...

MARION: I'm familiar with how a formal negotiation is handled.

CORNWALLIS: Oh?

MARION: I served in His Majesty's army in the French and Indian War.

CORNWALLIS: Oh. Very well, then. Would you, as the initiating party, like to begin?

MARION: Unless you would like to claim aggrieved status.

CORNWALLIS: My boys... my boys... you seem to have been well fed. Thank you for that, Colonel.

MARION: My pleasure, sir.

CORNWALLIS: Please forgive me for keeping you waiting.

MARION: Apology accepted.

CORNWALLIS: Thank you, Colonel... I'm afraid I don't know your name.

MARION: Colonel will do.

CORNWALLIS: As you wish.

CORNWALLIS: Do you see that, Colonel?

TARLETON: Unless I'm dreaming, I think I see irregulars at their center.

CORNWALLIS: Civility is a secondary virtue. It is superseded by duty.

TARLETON: I understand, sir.

CORNWALLIS: If I fail, you fail.

TARLETON: Perhaps.

CORNWALLIS: And if I triumph, you triumph.

TARLETON: Probably.

CORNWALLIS: How can we end this madness?

TARLETON: Difficult, sir. This is, as you pointed out, a civil war.

CORNWALLIS: It seems our Swamp Fox wants to have a formal parley.

TARLETON: Are you going to meet with him?

CORNWALLIS: Most certainly. Arrange it.

CORNWALLIS: Colonel Tarleton, you deal with these damned rebels.

TARLETON: Yes, sir.

CORNWALLIS: My harrier. Join us, Colonel.

TARLETON: Sir.

MARION: If this war is about more than Thomas, it's about more than Anne, as well. Stay the course.

GABRIEL: As you did at Fort Wilderness?

MARION: It was a different time, son. And you're a better man than that.

GABRIEL: I see, do as I say, not as I do.

MARION: Yes.

MARION: We buried them, then we went to track. It was a cold trail and they were moving fast. We went faster. We caught up to them at Kentucky Ford.

GABRIEL: Go on.

MARION: We took our time with them and gave every one of them worse than they had given at the fort. It was two weeks before they were all dead, all except two. We put the heads on a pallet and had the two we let live take it to the French at Fort Ambercon. The eyes, fingers and tongues we put in a basket and sent that down the Asheulot to the Cherokee. The French stayed east of the Blue Ridge after that and the Cherokee broke their treaty with the French and stayed out of the fight. That seemed to make a difference. The war went another year, things went better... and men bought us drinks.

MARION: That's why it was four years between you and Thomas. It took me that long to regain her respect.

GABRIEL: I'm not my mother. I can't have the respect without the knowing.

GABRIEL: Father, tell me what happened at Fort Wilderness?

MARION: You know what happened.

GABRIEL: No, I don't.

MARION: Everyone knows. It's what made me a hero. Me, Harry Lee, all of us. I got a medal. Men bought me drinks. They still do sometimes. Everyone knows what happened.

GABRIEL: Tell me what everyone doesn't know.

MARION: And what do they know?

GABRIEL: That the French and Cherokees captured the fort and when you retook it, you took revenge on them for what they did during the occupation.

MARION: That's right.

GABRIEL: That's not enough. Tell me.

MARION: Your mother asked me the same question around the time you were born. I was drunk and I was foolish enough to answer her.

MARION: Don't go in there.

GABRIEL: Is it her? Is Anne in there?

MARION: She is. Don't go in there.

GABRIEL: Tarleton has a list of our men, most are on it. A regiment of dragoons is going to the homes on the list, burning them, killing whomever resists, women and children, as well.

MARION: Where?

GABRIEL: Seven homes along the Black River so far...

GABRIEL: Sir, I'd like to request a furlough. Two days?

MARION: Granted. Where are you going?

GABRIEL: Cheraw Falls.

MARION: It's beautiful there. Your mother and I were there once, before you were born.

GABRIEL: I know.

GABRIEL: Father, there's something else I need to talk to you about.

MARION: What?

GABRIEL: Come with me. I'll tell you when we get there.

GABRIEL: She said... she loves you and misses you but she understands why you can't be there with her.

MARION: She said that? Oh, my Lord, she said that?

MARION: She spoke? Susan spoke?

GABRIEL: Full sentences. As if she had been speaking all along.

MARION: I don't believe it... and I wasn't there for it...

MARION: Stay the course... your mother used to say that to me when I'd get drunk or lose my temper.

GABRIEL: She'd say it to me when I picked on Thomas or Nathan.

MARION: You learned her lessons better than I.

GABRIEL: She got me at a more impressionable age.

GABRIEL: Fourteen dead, eleven wounded, eighteen captured.

MARION: I should have killed him when I had the chance?

GABRIEL: When was that? In the swamp at the expense of your men? Or when he killed Thomas at the expense of your family?

MARION: No...

GABRIEL: Or perhaps tomorrow at the expense of our cause.

MARION: Gabriel? Are you asleep?

GABRIEL: We're low on salt. I should go to Pembroke and get some.

MARION: Lord Cornwallis is brilliant. His weakness is that he knows it.

GABRIEL: Father?

MARION: Pride is his weakness.

MARION: These four wagons must be his.

GABRIEL: And the dogs, too, I'll wager.

GABRIEL: Less than a mile. Forty-one wagons, a company of Redcoat infantry, horses at the rear.

MARION: Flanking riders?

GABRIEL: I didn't see any.

MARION: Is it?

GABRIEL: If you're here only for revenge, you're doing a disservice to him as well as yourself.

MARION: How old are you?

GABRIEL: You know how old I am.

MARION: God help us all when you're forty.

MARION: And, Corporal... ... be careful.

GABRIEL: Yes... ... father.

MARION: Alright, Corporal, you take Bennington, Harrisville, Acworth and the farms along Black Swamp. I'll take the north side of the river. We'll meet at Snow's Island.

GABRIEL: Yes, sir.

MARION: Did your father teach you humility?

GABRIEL: He tried. It didn't take.

GABRIEL: Colonel, I didn't request this transfer because you're my father. I requested it because I believe in this cause and this is where I can do the most good.

MARION: Oh?

GABRIEL: I've been doing this for two years. I'm the best scout in the Continental Army, the best horseman, the best shot, the best scavenger and I know every deer path and swamp trail between here and Charleston.

MARION: Is that so?

GABRIEL: Yes, sir. My father taught me.

GABRIEL: What now, sir?

MARION: We put out the word. We'll start along the south side of the Santee...

GABRIEL: We'd cover more ground if we split up.

MARION: It's safer if we stay together.

GABRIEL: Father...

MARION: It's already over.

GABRIEL: I have to get these dispatches to Hillsboro.

MARION: You're in no condition to ride.

GABRIEL: I have no choice, I...

GABRIEL: Have you seen any Redcoats?

MARION: Not yet. What happened?

MARION: Do you intend to enlist without my permission?

GABRIEL: Yes.

GABRIEL: Father, I've lost respect for you. I thought you were a man of principle.

MARION: When you have children, I hope you'll understand.

GABRIEL: When I have children, I hope I don't hide behind them.

MARION: What news?

GABRIEL: The British army is barricaded in Boston. Harry Lee, is here from Virginia, recruiting for a Continental Army.

MARION: Is that why the Assembly was convened?

GABRIEL: Yes. He seeks a levy of troops and money.

MARION: And the Governor?

GABRIEL: He vowed that if the Assembly votes a single shilling to Lee, he'll dissolve the body.

MARION: Which would force our delegates in Philadelphia to vote for independence.

GABRIEL: The New York and Rhode Island assemblies have been dissolved...

MARION: The middle colonies?

GABRIEL: Rioting both sides of the bay, in Chestertown they burned the Customs House and tar-and-feathered the Customs Agent. He died of burns. In Wilmington they killed a Royal Magistrate and two Redcoats.

MARION: Anything about the convention in Philadelphia?

GABRIEL: Poor Richard says they'll make a Declaration of Independence by July.

GABRIEL: Father, a post rider came from Charleston. You have a letter inside.

MARION: Thank you. How's the spotted one's milk?

GABRIEL: There are some letters here from him. Some are just to you.

SUSAN: I don't care. I hate him.

GABRIEL: You don't hate him.

SUSAN: Yes, I do. I hate him and I hope he never comes back.

GABRIEL: He wanted to, Susan, but he couldn't leave his men.

SUSAN: He left us.

GABRIEL: I know he did and he's sorry. He'll come back as soon as he can.

LEE: Mister Robinson, I fought with Captain Marion in the French and Indian War, including the Wilderness Campaign. We served as scouts under Washington and I have no doubts about Captain Marion's courage or competence on a battlefield. There's not a man in this room, or anywhere, for that matter, to whom I would more willingly trust my life.

ROBINSON: I stand corrected.

LEE: Nonetheless, I would like to know, Mister Marion, how... how... how...

ROBINSON: An American nation. Colonel Lee, with your permission?

LEE: Please.

ROBINSON: Those of us who call ourselves Patriots are not seeking to give birth to an American nation, but to protect one that already exists. It was born a hundred-and-seventy years ago at Jamestown, Virginia and has grown stronger and more mature with every generation reared and with every crop sown and harvested. We are a nation and our rights as citizens of that nation are threatened by a tyrant three thousand miles away.

LEE: Thank you. Were I an orator, those are the exact words I would have spoken.

MARION: Your son, what did you name him?

LEE: Robert. Robert E. Lee.

MARION: And congratulations on the birth of your son.

LEE: Thank you. Maybe all of this will buy him some peace.

MARION: I hope so.

LEE: Goodbye, Francis.

MARION: Goodbye, Harry.

MARION: Don't touch him.

LEE: How many men have we seen die?

MARION: Two. Gabriel and Thomas.

LEE: They're gone. And there is nothing you or I can do to bring them back. But there is something you can do to help end all this.

MARION: It is ended.

LEE: No. It's not over yet. Two days ride, Yorktown, Virginia. Washington, the French, Cornwallis and Tarleton. It will end, one way or another. Francis, nothing will replace your sons but helping us will justify their sacrifice.

MARION: His wife was killed yesterday. She was with child.

LEE: I'm sorry, I didn't know.

LEE: We're a breath away from losing this war. In the North, Washington is reeling from Valley Forge, running and hiding from Clinton and twelve thousand Redcoats. Here in the South, Cornwallis has broken our back. He captured over five thousand of our troops when he took Charleston and today he destroyed the only army that stood between him and New York.

MARION: So now Cornwallis will head north, link up with Clinton and finish off Washington.

LEE: And Patriots will start dying on the gallows instead of the battlefield. Unless we can keep Cornwallis in the South until the French arrive. A treaty was signed at Versailles after our victory at Saratoga. The French are sending a fleet and ten thousand troops.

MARION: When?

LEE: Fall, six months at the earliest.

MARION: Long time.

LEE: The bigger problem is where, not when. The French fleet won't sail north of the Chesapeake for fear of early storms.

MARION: So you're going to try to keep Cornwallis in the South until then.

LEE: Not me, you. I'm going north with every Continental regular I can find to reinforce Washington or he won't last six weeks.

MARION: You expect Cornwallis to be held here by militia?

LEE: Not held, just slowed down.

MARION: They're nothing but farmers and you're asking them to try to keep a tiger in their backyard. They'd be better off letting it move on.

LEE: They'd be better off, but the cause wouldn't be.

MARION: How many men does Cornwallis have under his command?

LEE: Four thousand infantry and around six hundred cavalry... ... including the Green Dragoons under Tarleton.

MARION: Green Dragoons came to my home, killed my son, Thomas. It was Tarleton himself.

LEE: I'm sorry.

MARION: I'm sorry I wasn't here for this.

LEE: There's nothing you could have done, Gates is a damned fool.

MARION: We saw.

LEE: I begged him to stay in the cover of the trees but he insisted the only way to break Cornwallis was muzzle- to-muzzle. He spent too many years in the British army.

MARION: Where is he now?

LEE: Last anyone saw, riding hard, northeast, his staff a hundred yards behind, trying to catch up.

MARION: Who's in command?

LEE: I am, I think.

MARION: What are my orders?

LEE: One of yours?

MARION: Gabriel.

LEE: I recognize him now. Is he as imprudent as his father was at his age?

MARION: No, thank the Lord. He's more like his mother.

LEE: I'll see to it that he serves under me.

MARION: Thank you.

LEE: Wars are not fought only by childless men. A man must weigh his personal responsibilities against his principles.

MARION: That's what I'm doing. I will not fight and because I won't, I will not cast a vote that will send others to fight in my stead.

LEE: And your principles?

MARION: I'm a parent, I don't have the luxury of principles.

MARION: We don't have to go to war to gain independence...

LEE: Balderdash!

MARION: There are a thousand avenues, other than war, at our disposal...

LEE: Name five hundred.

MARION: Royal petition, delegates to court, judicial redress, economic boycott, bribery...

LEE: That's five, keep going...

MARION: ... time, royal succession, regicide, bribery...

LEE: You said bribery twice...

MARION: You were an Englishman then...

LEE: I was an American, I just didn't know it yet...

LEE: A long time ago...

MARION: Thirteen years...

LEE: That's a damn long time...

LEE: Damn it, Francis! How in God's name do you expect to gain independence without going to war?

MARION: Harry, Harry, Harry...

LEE: Captain Marion, I understood you to be a Patriot.

MARION: It's Mister Marion.

LEE: I understood him to be a Patriot as well.

MAJOR HALBERT: Lord Cornwallis will be with you presently.

MARION: Thank you.

MAJOR HALBERT: You may, of course, keep your weapons, but I must warn you that...

MARION: I'm familiar with appropriate behavior at a military parley.

MAJOR HALBERT: Yes, quite, but you should know that...

MARION: That will be all, Major. I'll wait for Lord Cornwallis.

MAJOR HALBERT: Yes... you will wait.

MARION: Margaret, take William and Susan to the river shed. Hide there. If we're not back by dawn, go up the river to the Richardson's house. They'll take you to your Aunt Charlotte's farm. Nathan, Samuel, and I are going to get Gabriel.

MARGARET: But what about Thomas?

MARION: Leave him. Take care of William and Susan.

MARION: Don't worry.

MARGARET: We could go stay at Aunt Charlotte's farm. She's to the west.

MARION: No, there'll be skirmishers on the roads. We're safer here.

MARGARET: How far away?

MARION: Four, five miles.

REV. OLIVER: Colonel, let us help his soul find it's place with the Almighty and...

MARION: He looks as if he's sleeping, doesn't he?

REV. OLIVER: Yes, he does.

MARION: How many came back?

REV. OLIVER: About a hundred and twenty. Less than a third.

MARION: It's a good measure of a woman that she'll have her honeymoon under the stars.

REV. OLIVER: For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do they part.

REV. OLIVER: Thank you.

MARION: For what?

REV. OLIVER: For trying to impose some decency on that sort.

MARION: Don't depend on my decency. I'm one of that sort.

MARION: Reverend.

REV. OLIVER: I heard about your son. I'm sorry.

WASHINGTON: If Cornwallis receives news that Clinton is coming, he'll simply hold tight and wait. He'll fight a purely defensive battle and he'll win that.

MARION: No, he won't. There are two things you need to know about Cornwallis. First, he is a very proud man, He would rather risk defeat than share a victory. If you give him what he thinks is an out, he'll take it.

WASHINGTON: And what is the second thing?

WASHINGTON: Francis, tell me about General Cornwallis.

MARION: Remember Braddock?

WASHINGTON: That bad?

MARION: Worse.

WASHINGTON: Proud, priggish and competent. A very bad combination in an adversary.

WASHINGTON: I was sorry to hear about your son.

MARION: I lost another a year ago, Thomas. He was only fifteen.

WASHINGTON: I've had no sons to lose, nor daughters. I lose the sons of other men.

MARION: Gray.

WASHINGTON: Earned.

MARION: Put those away.

THOMAS: But father, they might come this way.

MARION: Put them away.

MARION: Seventeen.

THOMAS: But it's already been two years and that's two more years. The war could be over by then.

MARION: God willing.

MARION: Not yet, Thomas.

THOMAS: When?

NATHAN: Father... I killed those men...

MARION: Don't blame yourself, you did what I told you to do.

NATHAN: I'm glad I killed them... I'm glad...

NATHAN: Father, you can't let them take him...

MARION: Quiet.

NATHAN: Father?

MARION: Six-pounders. Lots of them.

NATHAN: Father, I saw a post rider at the house.

MARION: Thank you. Did you finish the upper field?