so his strategy to win a revolutionary war was to wear the British down.
Wear in this context mean to put them down?
Wear in this context means to tear apart, destroy or pick apart the british army
More accurately, “wear down” is a phrasal verb. It means “erode” or “tire”.
The preposition “down” changes the meaning of “wear”. Probably you have discovered that you need to learn phrasal verbs as a unit, like you would learn a single word.