British dragoon sword

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by kronckew

By coincidence, the film 'The Patriot' was playing the other day, I looked carefully at the bad guy's sword. Col. Tavington and his dragoons were loosely based on Col. Banastre Tarllton, who was NOT the demon portrayed in the film (the murder of civilans in the church, etc. never happened). Hard to believe it was released 20 years ago.

If you look carefully at Tavington's sword you can see it is indeed a 4 slot cylindrical grip curved sabre like the one being discussed here, though presumably an officers model as the grip is ivory*. I managed to track down the company that made the sword, royal swordsmiths here in the UK, photo attached. Oil painting of the real Col. - later General - Tarlton as below. The film's historical accuracy is questionable at best, but someone got the swords fairly accurately.

*- You can see the ivory grip in the scene at Cornwallis' HQ as Mel was accosted by Tavington as Mel departed.

Thats great Wayne, you found the makers of the sword used by 'Tavington' (good play on the name) in the movie!!! One always wonders how accurate these movie weapons were, and you done gone and found out!!!

It is pretty impressive that they kept historical accuracy in mind with the weaponry, though the script writers followed their own need for the driving force in the plot, the revenge thing etc.
I agree its necessary I suppose to create a story line, but I really wish that scene was not in the movie, other than that it was a great film.

Actually I think there was far more inconsistency in war circumstances than anyone can imagine, and weapons were far more 'ersatz' than standard.

Great insights and research, thank you!!

[kronckew]

You're welcome!

As we dusicussed earlier, in another thread, I have a Revolutionary war American Dragoon sword repurposed from a French Dragoon one of the period that had the side bars removed leaving the 4 slot hand-guard part... Would have suited Mel's Left handed French Grenadier companion.

link: American or British?

[Jim McDougall]

Interesting example Wayne! and now I wonder more on the 'four slot' guard, as I continue always wondering more on the development of these features and elements in sword hilts.
Here I go back to the blade form on many of the straight blade dragoon types and and on my example (OP) which has a rather 'clipped' point, as mentioned shown in Seifert (1962) as a 'pandour' point.

It is of course well known that the British cavalry was profoundly influenced by Hungarian cavalry and weapons (via the French where there were numbers of these forces often present) in the mid 18th century. The exploits of the dreaded pandours had become well known, and it would seem these curiously pointed blades had become applied to some blades used on these British swords.

The point on mine is of course not as dramatic as in the illustration, nor the other example, but the illustration does seem to give the impression the points of these swords were notably contrary to those usually seen.