My fiance and I just started watching "Turn", the period piece set during the Revolutionary War. In one of the first scenes a soldier refers to "the British". Is that historically correct?
certainly not, they all saw themselves as British, it was loyalists if anything. using Hessians against the colonists is what made any hope of peace impossible, before that they were offered full representation in parliament
The colonials called the British army "the Regulars". The bit about colonials calling them "the British" is just a modern invention. The colonials, after all, considered themselves British. So, that scene in "Turn" is not at all accurate!
Paul Revere(s) went on their run yelling: "Thee Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming!" rather than what we often think as Paul's famous quote.
However, two other frequent names for the "British" in the Revolutionary war exist in surviving documents from the time: "The King's Men", and "Redcoats". Redcoats, grows in popularity as the war drags on, it isn't found often in documents from the beginning of the conflict. Regulars and King's Men is ubiquitous throughout.