Guerillas
To the best of my knowledge, Francis Marion did not sneak into Tory towns and blow up women and children in churches or shops, or kidnap non-combatants and kill them in ways too grotesque for even al Jazeera to broadcast.
Let's not draw too many parallels that aren't there.
America did not need to divest itself of an empire, because we never built one. How many colonies did the United States have in Africa or South America? Take a look at the list of U.S. territories. Impressive.
We could rule the planet with an iron fist if we wanted to. Plenty of other countries, given the same power, would have.