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I don't remember ever reading that Jackson was at Yorktown?
There was a story that Jackson was slashed on the arm with a saber because he refused to shine the boots of a Redcoat officer. Jackson used the story in his political campaigns. A lot of historians doubt its authenticity, and view it as campaign rhetoric.

The movie 'The Patriot' was a very good movie BUT extremely poor history. The character played by Mel Gibson was a combination of 4 Revolutionary War southern heroes: Daniel Morgan, Thomas Sumter, Francis Marion & Andrew Pickens. (Primarily Daniel Morgan & Francis Marion!) Thats why I found the movie simultaneously annoying and entertaining. Morgan, Marion etc. have essentially been forgotten ! The battle at then end of the 'Patriot' movie was a bad telling of Morgan's brilliant victory at the "Battle of the Cowpens".One of the most decisive & complete victories of the war.
I also found the Tarleton character Tavington to be irritating. Tarleton was a "hard war type"but he wasn't a member of the Waffen SS. That church burning was straight copy of a SS atrocity in France. We have REAL HEROS in our history why can't their story be told ! Also history is a drama no Hollywood writer can improve on !
Aside:
I have never understood Mel Gibson's apparent dislike of the British. He overplays their medieval nastiness in Braveheart (Remember in the Middle Ages life was cheap, brutal nasty & short and only a little less by the barest of margins if you were a 'good guy'!) Also in Chicken Run he makes them buffoons !
I wonder if this is his Aussie upbringing!

I just finished reading the (older) book "Voices of 1776" by Richard Wheeler. Its mainly reprinting letters and news articles from the time of the war with a few paragraphs here and their to fill in the details and chronology. Very good book and gave me a better idea of what was going on compared to my elementary school education.

A report from American Colonel Samuel Webb, July 11, 1779 discusses some recent British attacks in Connecticut:

"On Tuesday ..they went over to East Haven and burnt all the buildings next the shore..." the British then went to Fairfield and "sent a flag to the inhabitants" that if they swear their allegiance to the King they would be spared. They said no. "The British went immediately to plundering, and at seven o'clock set fire to the town, which now remains a heap of rubbish. This village was large and as beautiful as any in this state..."

"...A child of three years old was taken from the arms of its mother and thrown into the flames, and the mother, to stop her shrieks, knocked down with a musket. A man who was an old countryman, was rolled in a sheet, bound fast, soaked with rum and set fire to....this...excursion.. has been marked with more savage cruelty than before known."

I believe that some Americans returned the favor in a latter battle, but that another battle ended with "honor" after the Americans had promised to kill all the Brits in the fort. Instead the Americans after taking the fort gave the Brits "quarter". Often after a battle the opposing commanders had dinner together after the "laying down of arms". In general it was a much more "gentlemanly" war than what I think of war as being. Citizens taking picnics on the hills so they could watch the battle. Not wanting to shoot at a British officer's funeral (even though all the other officers were present, etc.).

Andrew Jackson lost most of his family to the British.
However, he paid them back - at New Orleans.

I agree The Patriot was a really disappointing movie.
Cowpens was a really important battle and deserved a better telling.

Hollywood can't make a really great movie today. The screenwriters have no education and no imagination. If they looked to early American history, they would find real stories and real heroes.

I just finished Patriotic Fire by Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump. Great book about the Battle of New Orleans.

I'm now on Washington's Spies by Alexander Rose.
More dramatic than any Hollywood spy thriller.

“Tarleton was a “hard war type”but he wasn’t a member of the Waffen SS.”

Tarleton was despised by southerners for long after the war.

In my former town of Greensboro, site of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, there are many roads named after battle participants both American and British.

In all the county for 200 years after no road was named for Tarleton until some Yankee developer created a battle themed subdivision in the 1980’s.