The first settlers came over from Europe by ship.
Hopefully this is what you were looking for, if not let me know and I can give you more information.
In the Revolutionary War, the colonial forces had multiple advantages. For one, they were fighting on their home turf, so they were more familiar with their surroundings. Also, they cared more about what they were fighting for - to the British, this was a dumb war they were being forced to fight so close to the 7 Year's War and they didn't really care about keeping some irrelevant colony. The colonial forces used guerrilla warfare to fight the British as well, which disrupted their traditional military style.
For the United States, the pursuit of freedom was born from its origins, and has a lot of relation to the war, taking examples that the Americans fought since the Independence of the 13 Colonies, later fought the American civil war, and finally the most important world war, World War II. For the history of the United States, freedom has been obtained through war with different powers and between the same country, to liberate America from slavery. Many of today's US bellicose interventions have been to liberate areas considered oppressed or dangerous, and although this is highly debatable globally, such actions have been pursued seeking freedom.