Some of the things I learned by watching: "The American Revolution" by Ken Burns (a documentary on PBS)

 The first thing I didn't know was that 15,000 black people joined the British but only about 5000 Black people joined the Continentals or Patriots. Why was this?

Because the British offered freedom from Slavery for them and all their generations to come.

The other thing I didn't know was that Native American Tribes often sided with the British because they thought the British would eventually leave if they won and leave them their lands and maybe the American Continentals (American Patriots) wouldn't keep taking over native American land.

However, General Washington had had enough of Tribes (especially New York STate Tribes killing his men and their families so he sent a General With Troops to wipe out completely these tribes helping the British and they burned down 40 native American Cities where local Indians had become more Westernized and had jobs and businesses and grew crops. So, all the Native American Crops of those who fought the Patriots were burned down completely and so were 40 Cities mostly in the New york State area were burned down to the ground completely. And I think this might have been done during the winter so most of these native Americans had no food or shelter because they lost everything.

However, General Washington had learned Guerrilla Fighting skills in the French and Indian War which trained him to fight more like Indians by using snipers with Long Rifles picking off  the redcoats whenever they could be found doing anything at all. The British Soldiers were used to more formal battles in Europe so the British soldiers were terrified of American Patriots willing to do almost anything to make British Soldiers leave or die.

There are many more things but this one stood out beyond any of them:

General WAshington did NOT have to win this war at all. He only had to not lose. Because not losing Britain could only lose because of the expense of this war. So, instead most of the time General Washington's men just picked off British Soldiers like Snipers would whenever they found them especially near forests where trees might make good protection from anyone shooting back at you.