The Continental Army consisted of soldiers from all 13 colonies and, after 1776, from all 13 states. When the American Revolutionary War began (at the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775) the colonial revolutionaries did not have a standing army. Previously, each colony had relied upon the militia (which was made up of part-time citizen-soldiers) for local defense, or the raising of temporary provincial troops during such crises as the French and Indian War of 1754–63. As tensions with Great Britain increased in the years leading to the war, colonists began to reform their militias in preparation for the perceived potential conflict. Training of militiamen increased after the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774. Colonists such as Richard Henry Lee proposed forming a national militia force, but the First Continental Congress rejected the idea.