Date of war: (1715-1783)

Population: 3,500,000

Service Members: 200,000

Ratio: 5.7%

Casualties: 4,435 Dead, 6,188 Wounded

Financial Cost in billions (1990s): $1.2

The Revolutionary war started from increasing tensions between the people from Britain's 13 American colonies and the British colonial government which represented the British crown. Some skirmishes between British troops and colonial militiamen in Lexington and Concord in April 1775 began the armed conflict. By the next summer the rebels were in full-scale war for their indepence. France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in 1778, turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict. After French assistance helped the Continental Army force the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the Americans had won their independence, though fighting would not formally end until 1783.

What were the causes

The Revolutionary war started when the British government needed to raise revenue after fighting in the seven years war which was very expensive but brought many new territories for the British empire. Since the British government needed money they began to pass new and very unpopular taxes to the colonies. Notably the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773 were met with heated protest among many colonists, who resented their lack of representation in Parliament and demanded the same rights as other British subjects. After much colonists resistance to these acts in 1770 violence broke out and British soldiers shot at a mob of angry colonists. This event became known as the Boston Massacre in which 5 men were shot and killed. 

After December 1773 a band of Bostanians dressed as mohawk indians boarded british ships. They proceeded to dump 342 chests of tea into the ocean. This event became known as the Boston tea party. Parliament in Britain was enraged by this and passed what is known as the Intolerable or Coercive Acts designed to reassert imperial authority in Massachusetts..In response to this a group of continental delegates decided to meet in Philadelphia in September 1774 to give talk about the grievances against the british crown. They did not yet go as far as to demand independence from Britain, but it denounced taxation without representation, as well as the maintenance of the British army in the colonies without their consent. It issued a declaration of the rights due every citizen, including life, liberty, property, assembly and trial by jury. The continental congress decided to meet again in May 1775 but by then violence had already broken out. 

By April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord, Massachusetts in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders rang a bell to warn the people of the redcoats coming towards them. In minutes colonial militiamen were ready to stop the incoming British troops. In april 19 militiamen clashed with British soldiers in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, marking the “shot heard round the world” that signified the start of the Revolutionary War. The second continental congress convened and decided to make the continental army with Geroge Washington as commander in chief. Major battles began and on July 4th the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence, drafted by a five-man committee including Franklin and John Adams but written mainly by Jefferson. That same month, determined to crush the rebellion, the British government sent a large fleet, along with more than 34,000 troops to New York. The war then waged on until in 1781 when French assistance helped the Continental Army force the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia. The Colonies had achieved independence though fighting would not formally end until 1783.