Thanks for your comments Kevin Looking at the American Civil War article the warbox there probably isnt accurate The War of Independence after all was a British civil war The American Civil War article should have the United States versus the Southern Rebels or something to that extent since the Confederacy was never recognized So I think that weve both got it wrong The American Civil War article must be changed otherwise we would be obliged to characterize the War of Independence as a war between Great Britain and the United States which I think we both agree would be silly  Im going to propose this change on the American Civil War discussion page  Here I think the warbox should characterize the war as one between American Rebels not Patriots since there was no American patria patriot is mainly a propaganda term and rebel is the proper label since they were rebelling against their government and their allies and Great Britain and its allies France is a significant enough ally of the rebels to be specified explicitly and American Loyalists are a significant enough ally of Great Britain yes they were in fact British but so were the rebels to be listed explicitly  The main reason why I think that this is necessary is because I do not think that the warbox as it was before I edited it properly demonstrated the fact that the War of Independence was not necessarily a popular war especially not until it seemed like it could be successful and that there were many colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain and were forced to flee to Canada It was as you say a civil war Moreover the way it was before made it seem as if the war was between us over here and the British over there  Think of it this way the American Civil War warbox would be terribly misleading if it listed the conflict as being between the United States and American Rebels or even American Patriots since the Confederates most certainly were Americans and considered themselves to be citizens of the Confederate States of America Rather it should be displayed as between the United States and Confederate or Southern Rebels  Now does my request really seem all that unreasonable