Minutemen (militia)
Minutemen is a name given to members of the
militia of the
American Colonies, who would be ready for battle in a minute's notice.
The term
minutemen has also been applied to various later
United States' military units to recall the success and patriotism of the originals. See
Minutemen.
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. Minutemen were usually drawn from the few original settlers of each town, and so it was very common to be fighting alongside cousins and in-laws.
Some towns in Massachusetts had a long history of designating a portion of their militia as Minutemen, but others preferred to keep their entire militia in a single unit. After
The Powder Alarm in the fall of
1774,
Patriot leaders in the newly formed
Massachusetts Provincial Congress recommended that all militias contain
minute companies -- special units within the militia system whose members underwent additional training and to hold themselves ready to turn out quickly ("at a minute's notice") for emergencies. Some towns followed this recommendation and altered their unit structures but some took no action.
The Minutemen were usually 25 years of age or younger, and they were chosen for their enthusiasm, reliability, and strength. They were the first armed militia to arrive or await a battle. Officers were elected by popular vote, and each unit drafted a formal written
covenant to be signed upon enlistment. They typically assembled four times per year for training during peacetime. It was common, sometimes even in the middle of battle, for officers to make decisions through consultation with their men as opposed to giving orders to be followed without question.
Popular histories of the
Battle of Lexington and Concord in
1775, the first battle of the
American Revolutionary War, have often labelled all the
irregulars on the American side as Minutemen, most notably
Captain John Parker's
Lexington Militia, but, at the time of the battle, all of Lexington's militiamen were organized into a single large unit and were still called by the archaic name of "town training band."
Other colonies, faced with similar problems, had organized similar
minute companies. Over time,
minutemen became a generic term for any American militia.
|
A minuteman statue depicted on the Massachusetts state quarter |
The
New England town meeting style of local decision-making in combination with the colonial legislature meant that, for nearly all functions of government, these men had already experienced generations of self-rule. Even though most of them could not express lofty sentiments about the rights of man and the purposes of government, they knew that the same
British Army of professional soldiers who had once fought with them against a common enemy was now in their land to take something important away from them. One Massachusetts man used the phrase "An Englishman's home is his castle" when he explained to his friends why he had barricaded himself behind his front door to fight the British Army as it passed by during the final phase of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The typical individual
American Patriot in
Massachusetts fought for a political idea even at this first stage of the war when independence from
Great Britain was not yet a commonsentiment.
Most Colonial militia units were provided neither arms nor uniforms, and so had to equip themselves. Many simply wore their own farmers' or workmans' clothes, while others had buckskin hunting outfits. Some added Indian-style touches to intimidate the enemy, even including war-paint. Most used hunting
rifles, which did not have
bayonets, but were accurate at long range.
The
Continental 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
skirmishers and
sharpshooters.
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
British troops fresh from Europe were less familiar with this. The wilderness terrain that lay just beyond many colonial towns, very familiar to the local minuteman, favored this style of combat.
The rifled musket used by most minutemen 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 weren't used by regular infantry, but were preferred for hunting. When performing as skirmishers, the minutemen could fire and fall back behind cover or other troops before the British could get into range. The increased range and accuracy of the rifle, along with a lifetime of hunting to develop marksmanship, earned minutemen sharpshooters a deadly reputation.
Ammunition and supplies were not only in short supply, but 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
barns.
 |
Concord 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 most well known statues (along with the
Lincoln Memorial), the
Concord Minuteman. Inscribed on the
pediment is the opening stanza of
Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1837
Concord Hymn with the immortal words, "
Shot heard 'round the world." Traditionally, the statue's likeness is said to be based on
Isaac Davis, the Captain of the
Acton Militia and first to be killed in
Concord during the
Battle of Lexington and Concord of April 19, 1775.
*
Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer ISBN 0195088476
*
The Encyclopedia of Military History, from 3500 B.C. to the Present by R. Erniest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy ISBN 0062700561
*
*
Who Were the Minutemen? (ushistory.org)*
Organization of the Minute-Men.
