Goofs

When Matt Howard (Cary Grant) is in his room shaving with soap on his face, and having a conversation with Thomas Jefferson (Richard Carlson), there is a knock on the door. Fleetwood Peyton (Cedric Hardwicke) enters, Matt turns to Fleetwood, and the shaving soap has disappeared from his face.

There are several inconsistencies in the chronology of Matt Howard's life and the progression of the American Revolutionary milestones presented in the film. Matt's father is killed in the early years of the French and Indian War, which would place his death no earlier than 1754 (more likely no earlier than 1756). The film then shows a title card indicating that twelve years had passed, thus placing the timeline of the film in the mid-to-late 1760s. Matt, however, learns of the recent passage of the Stamp Act and England's taxation measures toward the colonies. The Stamp Act was instituted in 1756, making it impossible for Matt's father to have died in the French and Indian War and for twelve years to have passed. As an adult, Matt then meets, courts, and marries Jane Peyton (presumably in 1766 or 1768 according to the date of his father's death) and moves to western Virginia to homestead and fathers three children. Matt learns of the Boston Tea Party (December 1773) and the Intolerable Acts of 1774 near the time that his family visits the Peytons' home in Virginia. At this time, Matt's three children are an unspecified age, but Peyton (the oldest) appears no more than five years of age, and James (the youngest) is just a baby. The male children, however, join their father in the Colonial Army. It is strongly inferred that the young men join Matt during the lean Winter of 1777-1778, and it is clear that they are seasoned soldiers by the Battle of Yorktown (1781). The film depicts the sons as teenagers, slightly under the age of eighteen when they join their father and presumably older than eighteen by the Battle of Yorktown. However, using news of the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, and Intolerable Acts as points of reference, the oldest boy would have been no older than eleven and the youngest no older than nine by the date of the Battle of Yorktown, (Presumably they would have been even younger unless Jane conceived each child almost immediately after giving birth.)

While in camp during the war, Cary Grant unwraps his feet to reveal zippers on the bottom of his breeches. Zippers were not invented until 1913.

In an effort to make Matt sound more like a backwoodsman, the script has him repeatedly using the word "consarned," meaning damnable or cursed. However, the word "consarned" did not enter the English language until approximately 1830, sixty-five years after its first use in the film.

Cary Grant buys Shenedoah Valley property in Augusta County but later in the film there are repeated references to him returning to "Albemarle," which is on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and not in the valley. Augusta is the older county, formed in 1738.

The map of Virginia shown at the beginning of the film shows the 1940 configuration of Virginia counties, many of which had not been formed at the time of the film.

Jane (Martha Scott) is nine months pregnant and on the brink of giving birth, yet still she is corseted into a dress with a narrow waistline.