Minutemen Minutemen were members of well - prepared militia companies of select men from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War . They provided a highly mobile , rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats , hence the name . The minutemen were among the first people to fight in the American Revolution . Their teams constituted about a quarter of the entire militia . Generally younger and more mobile , they served as part of a network for early response . Minuteman and Sons of Liberty member Paul Revere was among those who spread the news that the British Regulars ( soldiers ) were coming out from Boston . Revere was captured before completing his mission when the British marched toward the arsenal in Concord to confiscate the weapons and ammunition that were stored there . The term has also been applied to various later United States civilian - based paramilitary forces to recall the success and patriotism of the originals . History . In the British colony of Massachusetts Bay ] ] , all able - bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to participate in their local militia . As early as 1645 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony , some men were selected from the general ranks of town - based " training bands " to be ready for rapid deployment . Men so selected were designated as minutemen . They were usually drawn from settlers of each town , and so it was very common for them to be fighting alongside relatives and friends . [ [ File : Massachusetts quarter , reverse side , 2000 . jpg | thumb | " The Concord Minute Man of 1775 " statue depicted on the Massachusetts [ [ state quarter ] ] Some towns in Massachusetts had a long history of designating a portion of their militia as minutemen , with " minute companies " constituting special units within the militia system whose members underwent additional training and held themselves ready to turn out rapidly ( " at a minute ' s notice " ) for emergencies , hence their name . Other towns , such as Lexington , preferred to keep their entire militia in a single unit . Members of the minutemen , by contrast , were no more than 30 years old , and were chosen for their enthusiasm , political reliability , and strength . They were the first armed militia to arrive at or await a battle . Officers , as in the rest of the militia , were elected by popular vote , and each unit drafted a formal written [ [ Covenant ( historical ) | covenant ] ] to be signed upon enlistment . The militia typically assembled as an entire unit in each town two to four times a year for training during peacetime , but as the inevitability of war became apparent , the militia trained three to four times a week . In this organization , it was common for officers to make decisions through consultation and consensus with their men as opposed to giving orders to be followed without question . Just before the [ [ American Revolutionary War ] ] , on October 26 , 1774 , after observing the British military buildup , the Massachusetts Provincial Congress found the colony ' s militia resources short , and that " including the sick and absent , it amounted to about 17 , 000 men , far short of the number wanted , that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency , " resolving to organize the militia better : The need for efficient minuteman companies was illustrated by the [ [ Powder Alarm ] ] of 1774 . Militia companies were called out to resist British troops , who were sent to capture ammunition stores . By the time the militia was ready , the British regulars had already captured the arms at Cambridge and Charlestown and returned to Boston . Pequot War . In August 1636 , the first offensive military attack by militias failed when Massachusetts sent [ [ John Endecott ] ] with four companies on an unsuccessful campaign against the [ [ Pequot ] ] Indians . According to one man ' s account the expedition only killed one Indian and burned some [ [ wigwams ] ] . Weeks elapsed between the incidents that caused the march , and the arrival of Endecott ' s men in the area . Once they got there , they didn ' t know which Indians to fight , or why . This feeble response encouraged the Indians , and attacks on the settlers in the Connecticut Valley increased . In the following year Massachusetts again put a force on the field in collaboration with Plymouth and Connecticut . By the time Plymouth had gotten their force packed and ready to march the campaign had ended . Massachusetts Bay sent 150 militiamen , Plymouth sent 50 and Connecticut sent 90 . New England confederation . In May 1643 , a joint council was formed . They published the articles of the New England confederation . The real power of the confederation was that all four of the colonies promised to contribute soldiers to an alert force that would fight anywhere in the colonies . On September 7 , 1643 the towns were given more tactical control . A new rule allowed any general to call up his militia at any time . On August 12 , 1645 , 30 % of all militia were made into short - notice groups ( minutemen ) . Command and control were decentralized to the extent that individual company commanders could put their troops into a defensive battle if necessary . A portion of the militia was well trained and well equipped , and set aside as a ready force . In May 1653 , the Council of Massachusetts said that an eighth of the militia should be ready to march within one day to anywhere in the colony . Eighty militiamen marched on the Narragansett tribe in Massachusetts , though no fighting took place . Since the colonies were expanding , the Narragansetts got desperate and began raiding the colonists again . The militia chased the Indians , caught their chief , and got him to sign an agreement to end fighting . In 1672 , the Massachusetts Council formed a military committee to control the militia in each town . In 1675 , the military committee raised an expedition to fight the raiding Wampanoag tribe . A muster call was sent out and four days later , after harsh skirmishes with the Wampanoags , three companies arrived to help the locals . The expedition took heavy losses : two towns were raided , and one 80 - man company was killed entirely , including their commander . That winter , a thousand militiamen pushed out the Wampanoags . In response to the success of the Wampanoags , in the Spring of 1676 an alarm system of riders and signals was formed in which each town was required to participate . The British and French , each with Indian allies , engaged in various fights beginning in 1689 and dragging on for almost a hundred years . In 1690 , Colonel William Phips led 600 men to push back the French . Two years later he became governor of Massachusetts . When the French and Indians raided Massachusetts in 1702 , Governor Phips created a bounty which paid 10 shillings each for the scalps of Indians . In 1703 , snowshoes were issued to militiamen and bounty hunters to make winter raids on the Indians more effective . The minuteman concept was advanced by the snow shoe men . The Minutemen always kept in touch with the political situation in Boston and their own towns . From 1629 to 1683 , the towns had controlled themselves but in 1689 , the King appointed governors . By 1772 , James Otis and Samuel Adams used the Town Meetings to start a Committee of Correspondence . This instigated in 1774 a boycott of British goods . The Minutemen were aware of this as well . With a rising number of Minutemen they faced another problem : they didn ' t have enough gunpowder to support an army for long enough to win freedom . They needed powder badly . The people of an island controlled by the Dutch , [ [ Sint Eustatius ] ] , decided they had had enough with the British being the major power and having its hand grasping over the entire world . They were quite pleased with the idea of a large rebellion rising up against the British in the New World . As a token of support , they traded gunpowder to the Colonials for other goods needed in Europe . Not only did the Minutemen have political awareness of events in New England , but also of the feelings of other countries such as the Dutch and France . The Colonials knew that other powers in the world were against the British for the amount of power they wielded . American Revolutionary War period . [ [ File : Lexington Concord - 5c . jpg | thumb | This stamp was one of a set of three issued in 1925 . The poem on the plaques is by Ralph Waldo Emerson . ] ] In 1774 , General [ [ Thomas Gage ] ] , the new Governor of Massachusetts , tried to enforce the [ [ Intolerable Acts ] ] , which were designed to remove power from the towns . [ [ Samuel Adams ] ] pressed for County Conventions to strengthen the revolutionary resistance . Gage tried to seat his own court in Worcester , but the townspeople blocked the court from sitting . Two thousand militiamen marched to intimidate the judges and get them to leave . This was the first time the militia was used by the people to block the king ' s representatives from acting on royal orders and against popular opinion . Gage responded by preparing to march to collect munitions from the provincials . For 50 miles around Boston , militiamen were marching in response . By noon the next day , almost 4000 people were on the common in Cambridge . The provincials got the judges to resign and leave . Gage backed off from trying to seat a court in Worcester . The colonials in Worcester met and came up with a new militia mobilization plan in their County Convention . The Convention required that all militia officers resign . Officers were then elected by their regiments . In turn , the officers then appointed 1 / 3 of their militia regiment as Minutemen . Other counties followed Worcester ' s lead , electing new militia officers and appointing Minutemen . Gage conducted several " show the flag " power demonstrations in Massachusetts which showed the local government officials that the " Minuteman " mobilization scheme worked well . When it came to practicing formations with their weapons , the British mainly only practiced on formations and marching . In addition to having no area to practice live firing because they were crowded into Boston , the British knew that in 18th century warfare the movement of the bodies of men and their formations to maximize the line of fire was the more difficult and therefore , more important part of military drill . The militia planned extensively with elaborate plans to alarm and respond to movements by the king ' s forces out of Boston . The frequent mustering of the minute companies also built unit cohesion and familiarity with live firing which increased the minute companies effectiveness . The royal authorities inadvertently gave the new Minuteman mobilization plans validation by several " show the flag " demonstrations by General Gage through 1774 . The royal authorities in Boston had seen these increasing numbers of militia appearing and thought that if they sent a sizable force to Concord to seize munitions and stores there ( which they considered the King ' s property since it was paid for to defend the colonies from the American Indian threat ) , the militia would not interfere . The [ [ Battles of Lexington and Concord | events on April 19 , 1775 ] ] proved them wrong when the mobilization fielded large numbers of minutemen to confront them at Concord that , with the arrival of the slower moving militia , rapidly outnumbered them and forced a strategic defeat on Colonel Smith forcing him back to Boston . The mobilization plan worked so well that only the timely arrival of a relief column under Lord Percy in Lexington prevented the annihilation or surrender of the original road column . [ [ File : Lexington and Concord - 2c . jpg | thumb | right ] ] [ [ File : minutemen 1 . jpg | thumb | Minutemen monument in [ [ Hollis , New Hampshire ] ] ] ] Equipment , training , and tactics . Most Colonial militia units were provided neither arms nor uniforms , and were required to equip themselves . Many simply wore their own farmers ' or workmans ' clothes , and in some cases they wore cloth hunting frocks . Most used fowling pieces , though [ [ rifle ] ] s were sometimes used where available . Neither fowling pieces nor rifles had [ [ bayonet ] ] s . Some colonies purchased muskets , cartridge boxes , and bayonets from England , and maintained armories within the colony . The [ [ Continental Army ] ] [ [ army | regulars ] ] received European - style military training later in the [ [ American Revolutionary War ] ] , but the militias did not get much of this . Rather than fight formal battles in the traditional dense lines and columns , they were better when used as irregulars , primarily as [ [ skirmisher ] ] s and [ [ sharpshooter ] ] s . When used in conjunction with continental regulars , the militia would frequently fire ragged irregular volleys from a forward skirmish line or the flanks of the Continental Army , while Continental soldiers held the center . Their experience suited irregular warfare . Most were familiar with frontier hunting . The [ [ Indian Wars ] ] , and especially the recent [ [ French and Indian War ] ] , had taught both the men and officers the value of irregular warfare , while many English troops fresh from Europe were less familiar with this . The [ [ long rifle ] ] was also well suited to this role . The [ [ rifling ] ] ( grooves inside the barrel ) gave it a much greater range than the [ [ smoothbore ] ] musket , although it took much longer to load . Because of the lower rate of fire , rifles were not used by regular infantry , but were preferred for hunting . When performing as skirmishers , the militia could fire and fall back behind cover , or other troops , before the British could get into range . The wilderness terrain that lay just beyond many colonial towns , very familiar to the local minuteman , favored this style of combat . In time , however , loyalists like [ [ John Butler ( pioneer ) | John Butler ] ] and [ [ Robert Rogers ( soldier ) | Robert Rogers ] ] mustered equally capable irregular forces ( [ [ Butler ' s Rangers ] ] and the [ [ Queen ' s Rangers ] ] , led by Englishman [ [ John Graves Simcoe ] ] ) . In addition , many British commanders learned from experience and effectively modified their light infantry tactics and battle dress to suit conditions in North America . Through the remainder of the revolution , militias moved to adopting the minuteman model for rapid mobilization . With this rapid mustering of forces , the militia proved its value by serving as augmentees to the continental army on a temporary basis occasionally leading to instances of numerical superiority . This was seen at the Battles of [ [ Battle of Hubbardton | Hubbardton ] ] and [ [ Battle of Bennington | Bennington ] ] in the north and at [ [ Battle of Camden | Camden ] ] and [ [ Battle of Cowpens | Cowpens ] ] in the south . Cowpens is notable in that [ [ Daniel Morgan ] ] used the militias strengths and weaknesses skillfully to attain the double - envelopment of [ [ Tarleton ] ] ' s forces . The historian M . L . Brown states that while some of these men mastered the difficult handling of a rifle , few became expert . Brown quotes the Continental Army soldier Benjamin Thompson , who expressed the ' common sentiment ' at the time which was that minutemen were notoriously poor marksmen with rifles : Ammunition and supplies were in short supply and were constantly being seized by British patrols . As a precaution , these items were often hidden or left behind by minutemen in fields or wooded areas . Other popular concealment methods were to hide items underneath floorboards in houses and [ [ Barn ( building ) | barns ] ] . Criticism . The success of minutemen at Lexington and Concord is offset by the long history of failures of the colonial militia . Even [ [ Samuel Adams ] ] , who was at Lexington on the day of the famous clash , later said : " Would any man in his sense , who wishes war may be carried on with vigor , prefer the temporary and expensive drafts of militia and minutemen to a permanent and well - appointed army ? " [ [ Charles Lee ( general ) | General Charles Lee ] ] , who had desired to lead militia forces , complained : " As to the minutemen , no account ought to be made of them . " [ [ George Washington ] ] is also well known for a long series of scathing opinion of the shortcomings of militia forces . However , the minuteman model for militia mobilization married with a very professional , small standing army was the primary model for the United States ' land forces up until 1916 with the establishment of the [ [ National Guard of the United States | National Guard ] ] . Legacy . [ [ File : Minute Man . JPG | thumb | " The Concord Minute Man of 1775 " by Daniel Chester French , erected in 1875 in Concord , Massachusetts , depicting a typical minuteman ] ] In commemoration of the centenary of the first successful armed resistance to British forces , [ [ Daniel Chester French ] ] , in his first major commission , produced one of his best - known statues ( along with the [ [ Lincoln Memorial ] ] ) , the " Concord Minute Man of 1775 " . Inscribed on the pedestal is the opening stanza of [ [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ] ] ' s 1837 " [ [ Concord Hymn ] ] " with the immortal words , " [ [ Shot heard ' round the world ] ] . " According to the sculptor , the statue ' s likeness is not based on [ [ Isaac Davis ( soldier ) | Isaac Davis ] ] as is widely claimed , the captain of the [ [ Acton , Massachusetts | Acton ] ] militia and first to be killed in Concord during the [ [ Battles of Lexington and Concord ] ] on April 19 , 1775 , but rather on the typical minuteman of the day . Minutemen are portrayed in " [ [ Paul Revere ' s Ride ( poem ) | Paul Revere ' s Ride ] ] " , a poem by [ [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ] ] . Although historians criticize the work as being historically inaccurate , Longfellow understood the history and manipulated it for poetic effect . The athletic teams of the [ [ University of Massachusetts - Amherst ] ] are nicknamed [ [ UMass Minutemen | the Minutemen ] ] and [ [ UMass Minutemen | Minutewomen ] ] . The [ [ US Air Force ] ] named the [ [ LGM - 30 ] ] [ [ Intercontinental Ballistic Missile ] ] , which was designed for rapid deployment in the event of a [ [ Nuclear warfare | nuclear attack ] ] , the " Minuteman . " The " Minuteman III " LGM - 30G remains in service today . External links . [ [ Category : Militia in the United States ] ] [ [ Category : United States militia in the American Revolution ] ]