The birth of our Nation: The thirteen colonies of British North America took on the most powerful empire in the world and won their independence. Most of the men who fought were militia, men who grabbed their hunting rifle off the wall and ran to take on the British. Often they would shoot from behind trees and shoot officers off their horses, an act considered by the British to be ungentlemanly. In many ways this was a guerrilla war. We knew we stood little chance standing toe-to-toe with British regulars till later in the war, so we fought anyway we could. Eventually our regulars grew strong enough to force the British off our shores, but we never would have gotten there without the militia.
