Are you kidding me? Back then it was staying neutral and proving we could govern our self without falling apart. We only got more territory through force once, and that was the far west, Napoleon gave us Louisianan, and the west was fought with the Native Americans, sure that was bad, but it was our "manifest destiny" :D.
And all you brits can be quite, we broke apart because of unfair treatment you pushed upon us. The one I remember the most was when we would ship our resources to you and then you'd send them back and expect us to buy them for a higher selling price! Plus you tried to fight us again in 1812, and we won again. And then what do we do? We help your asses out in world war I and II. So don't you complain when we feel like setting off fireworks for escaping tyranny. That's a pretty big achievement for a bunch of rag-tag Yankee militias. But I do have to back you up on the Boston Massacre, that was just a bunch of idiot colonists.
Oh and Spation, at the time we were 13 colonies, about the same size as mother England, plus you were a trained military and navy, we were but mere civilians who didn't even have uniforms. So you tell me, how did you get beaten?