by D.W. Wilber, America Outloud:

On April 19, 1775, the American colonists had had enough. In Lexington, Massachusetts, and shortly thereafter in the village of Concord, they banded together and stood up against the invading British Redcoats, and the first blood on both sides was shed. Just over a year later, on July 4, 1776, we Americans officially declared independence from England, and the American Revolution was underway in earnest.

Our war for independence from England lasted roughly eight years, ending roughly on September 3, 1783. Approximately six thousand eight hundred American patriots died in battle, facing the more professional and experienced army of King George III in engagements throughout the original thirteen colonies of what would eventually become the United States of America. Another seventeen thousand American Patriots died as a result of illness, disease, and malnutrition, many during the harsh winter encampment of 1777-78 at Valley Forge.