By reading the book “A Revolutionary People at War”, I gained a different understanding of the war as a whole. First, as I read, I notice that there is a broader reason why the Americans chose to fight against the British, not only for freedom, but also because the revolutionaries' overall spiritual belief was a driving force behind their will. fight. Second, how the American citizen's relationship with the Continental Army changed dramatically throughout the war, from a non-uniformed "militia" army to a professionalized standing army, and finally how all beliefs of the war were endured through time. The aspect that needs to be highlighted concerns the main differences between Britain and the still developing American colonies. Of course, the British were a huge political and military power that had centuries of combat experiences in Europe and were able to beat other great powers such as Spain and France. Even though Britain is a better naval power in terms of standing army, they still vastly outnumbered the American revolutionaries. On the other hand, American military power, at the time, was 180% of the British army in terms of manpower and combat experience. For example, the American colonists had no formal army or navy when the Revolution broke out. The only form of military power America had was a local colony militia composed, in British eyes, of "races". in the chicken-hearted hearts of farmers, dry goods merchants, and slave drivers” (Royster, 10). But it would not be numbers or experience that would determine the outcome of this war, but it would be the moral differences of the two countries that would... middle of paper ...... to which the US military would be faced in terms of experience compared to the British and also how the country's morals helped motivate a group of inexperienced soldiers to defeat the strongest military power in the world, but the main focus that I enjoyed through the book was the internal power struggle of the American people and their military. In my opinion, this is the aspect of the war that is not as well explained as in Royster's book: not only were the British fighting the colonies, but the colonies were fighting themselves. Ultimately, these procedures that took place during the American Revolution had the lasting effect that the military should stay out of public ideals and that Americans should allow the military to control its soldiers, but because of the Newburgh Conspiracy, there was a sense of public distrust of the U.S. military.