The British Army was very upset that ragtag riflemen in the American colonies kept running into the woods and shooting from behind cover instead of standing in a Proper Formation and exchanging volleys of fire. No true gentlemen does that!
> the British military and government frequently accused American colonial soldiers of violating the established "rules of war" (or the "laws of nations") during the Revolutionary War, largely because they viewed the conflict not as a war between sovereign nations, but as a rebellion. The British often regarded the Americans as unlawful combatants, or rebels, who used irregular tactics that disregarded traditional 18th-century European military etiquette.