American militia fighting on their own soil was arguably the largest technical factor in them winning the war. Americans knew the land they fought on, and therefore knew the best routes to take for supplies, troop movements, and where the British may have been hiding. American militias hired <em>frontiersmen</em>, men who had grown up in the woods and knew how to hunt and travel in them, to fight on their side of the war. This allowed for a huge advantage over the British in the ground battles of the war.
Americans also had something that the British did not: patriotism. The Americans knew that, if they did not win the war, they would have to go back to living under the unfair British rule, if they did not die that is. Americans were able to use this spirit to fight their war harder than the British did.
Americans did not fight England's war. They disregarded the European ideas of a gentleman's war and fought, as the British considered them, dirty. The Americans shot and killed commanding officers, shot and killed their horses, attacked at night and during meal and tea times, and other war strategies that went against how the British had been taught to fight their whole life. This gave Americans a large edge over the British in individual battles.
