I don’t think any of these movies are meant to reflect specific historical accuracy. Whether the guy burned a church as a fact or not, it depicts the human toll in a very realistic way, I thought.
I enjoyed The Patriot and have a copy of it in my DVD collection. Hollywood does have a tendency to play fast and loose with the truth. Unfortunately though, many people take what they see on screen as the gospel truth, and are too lazy to read books, private manuscripts, or newspapers from that time, to find out what was really going on.