The British troops had set out to disarm the local militia. I have a hard time seeing how something that began with armed infantry units confronting each other

The British troops had set out to disarm the local militia. I have a hard time seeing how something that began with armed infantry units confronting each other at Lexington was not a war. And by the way, when the British seized a Spanish fleet--which had imagined itself to be neutral--during the Napoleonic wars, their government stated that the United Kingdom had never been in the habit of starting wars with a declaration.