The reason the north gets more press is because it’s the North.
Since the CW in particular, New England Yankees have been pretty much controlling what is American “culture” (Thanksgiving, anyone? even if they were common in the day) and history.
NEers love to paint themselves as the starters of the war - which is true, but it’s about all they did. The way Ted Kennedy’s MA compatriots act, the entire war was in MA. Actually, after leaving Boston after a year, the war never fully returned there. There was a fight in Newport RI, but most of the major fighting became a NY-PA thing, Arnold’s return home notwithstanding.
Yes, Washington’s part in it had a lot to do with it. But I still think it’s because culture has focused heavily on New England. People have been taught it’s NE-this and NE-that, and before long people think NE did it all, both staging battles and fighting men. Look how New Jersey finally put on a campaign that they’re the “crossroads of the Rev”; before that noone was really aware how much happened with NJ.
And if you stick to NE, indeed, the war will seem short and easy. Because nothing much happened there.
From 1765 through 1770, NYC was the focus of rebellious thought and action(mainly because they were hit hard economically by the Brit pullout after the French and Indian War ended in '63), remember: the Stamp ACt Congress was there.
After 1770, the rebellion shifted to Boston and they certainly drove it. Once the Brits left the area when the cannons on Dorchester Heights were pointed at their fleet, the RevWar left MA as well.
I think there was a deal made between the New Dealers and the Southern segregationists that the New Dealers needed to keep the Democratic party together. Part of that deal was that the North can take credit for the Revolutionary War in textbooks, while, in those same textbooks, the South can deify Lee and villify Grant.
Sour grapes.