Fought in a wide variety of conditions and environments from Canada to the West indies, the skirmishes, battles, and sieges of the American Revolution presented a series of unique combat challenges to its competing factions. In the wake of the bruising early encounters at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, the British Army implemented important changes to its doctrine and tactics. Fighting for the British Crown but reporting to their own princes, the forces of the various independent German states responded in different ways to the challenges of the American battlefields. On the other side, the newly founded Continental Army was initially heavily styled on its British opponents and employed a variety of different tactical approaches; the sometimes controversial efforts of former Prussian officer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben came to transform battlefield doctrine for the Patriots. From 1778 French forces fought alongside the Continental Army, bringing with them their own tactical methods, culminating in the successful siege of Yorktown in 1781. This absorbing study investigates the four principal participants' battlefield tactics, casting light on how evolving tactical theory and battlefield experience shaped the conduct of warfare in the American Revolution. Book jacket.