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This article has had its infobox tag removed by a cleanup using AWB. Any concerns please leave me a message at my talk page. RWardy 19:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Currently the article is about the movie, there should be an article split off for the novel. There are differences in the plot between the novel and the movie. BradMajors (talk) 07:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This article about the movie and any article about the novel should mention that both are based upon historical fact, as the author relates. A colonist out hunting chanced to see a large Native American Indian war party coming to attack his settlement to destroy it. He fired his flintlock and dropped it in a stream, hoping to retrieve it later, and then took off running. A line of eight or nine warriors with tomahawks jogged after him. In such chases, the rule was that one Indian brave would sprint forward to kill, forcing the prey to sprint. This pattern would continue until the prey was winded, and a warrior could then sprint forward and kill the prey, usually with a thrown tomahawk. But this hunter, whose name may have been Adam Helmer, was too big and too long of leg to catch: he succeeded in escaping all of his pursuers and got back to warn his fellow settlers. So when the war party got there, they found all of the settlers inside their fort with loaded guns awaiting them. This is roughly what happened and is based upon my reading the novel two decades ago and then researching the incident. As with many frontier incidents, not much more is known than is here related, not even if he was ever able to retrieve his flintlock. Perhaps that is why it was a great incident upon which to base a novel. rumjal 16:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
One should try to be historically accurate when discussing the historical accuracy of a work of fiction. The Loyalist regiment known as Butler's Rangers did not participate in St. Leger's expedition since permission to raise a regiment was not granted to John Butler until September 1777. During St. Leger's expedition, Butler commanded a contingent of British Indian Department rangers.
The Balliston Raid occurred in 1780 so could not have been a motivation for the 1779 Sullivan Campaign. The Attack on German Flatts (1778) is a better example. Griffin's Sword (talk) 17:16, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
