In Britain's American colonies, the cry goes out for freedom as the air from Lexington to the Carolinas burns hot with powder smoke and cannon fire. But Benjamin Martin has had his fill of war. A veteran of the fierce French and Indian conflict, he has renounced fighting forever, retiring to his South Carolina farm to raise his motherless children in peace.

Now the war has found his hiding place, bringing its senseless cruelty back into his life and destroying what he holds most dear. And Benjamin Martin must take up arms to fight again-to lead a makeshift army of brave farmers and craftsmen against a relentless, overwhelming enemy-in the blessed cause of liberty...and blood vengeance.