<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> It started with jaunty confidence and skirling bagpipes. Five days later it had turned into one of the bloodiest and most futile battles ever fought on American soil.</span></span></p>
<p><span class="deck">She played the war, learning to creep through the woods without leaving footprints or snapping twigs. She read and dreamed about the war, lying on her bed, limp with horror and delight. The history of the war was a drug and she was an addict.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">More than two decades before the Revolution broke out, a group of Americans voted on a scheme to unite the colonies. For the rest of his life, Benjamin Franklin thought it could have prevented the war. It didn’t, but it did give us our Constitution.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">The French helped us win our revolution. A few years later, we were at war with Napoleon’s navy. The two countries have been falling in and out of love ever since. Why?</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">250 years ago, Major Robert Rogers and his rangers launched a daring wilderness raid against an enemy village, but paid a steep price.</span></p>
