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80-557: Minutemen were civilian militia units during the American Revolutionary War. Minutemen , Minute Men , or Minuteman may also refer to: Minutemen The minutemen were among the first to fight in the American Revolution . Their teams constituted about a quarter of the entire militia. They were generally younger, more mobile, and provided with weapons and arms by the local governments. They were still part of

160-631: A gunpowder magazine that held the largest supply of gunpowder in Massachusetts. Phips gave the King's Troops the keys to the building, and after sunrise, they removed all of the gunpowder. Most of the regulars then returned to Boston the way they had come, but a small contingent marched to Cambridge , removed two field pieces , and took them to Boston by foot over the Great Bridge and up Boston Neck . The field pieces and powder were then taken from Boston to

240-452: A force of troops for action the next day, something that did not go unnoticed by the local population. At some point that day, General Gage, whether by his intent, accident, or theft by a messenger, lost possession of the August 27 letter from William Brattle; the widely held story is that it was dropped. News of its content spread rapidly, and many considered it to be a warning to Gage to remove

320-442: A letter dated August 27 that the provincial ("King's") powder was the only supply remaining in that storehouse, as the towns had removed all of theirs. Gage decided that this powder had to be brought to Boston for safekeeping. On August 31, Gage sent Middlesex County Sheriff David Phips to Brattle with orders to remove the provincial powder; Brattle turned the key to the powder house over to Phips. Gage also gave orders to ready

400-504: 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 1925 Lexington-Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar features a sculptural portrayal. The athletic teams of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst are nicknamed the Minutemen and Minutewomen . Until

480-553: 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 . 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 . In commemoration of

560-492: A reform and update of the militia in the provincial legislature. Hutchinson, the Royal Governor, had ignored him, but as tensions mounted, that tactic became less effective. Adams' and his like-minded friends were gaining more traction. In May 1774, Hutchinson was relieved by General Thomas Gage , the new Governor of Massachusetts , who arrived with orders to close the port of Boston. Instead of tamping down disagreement between

640-880: A rising number of Minutemen they faced another problem: a lack of gunpowder to support an army for long enough to fight a prolonged campaign against the British. The people of an island controlled by the Dutch , Sint Eustatius , were supportive of the American revolutionaries . 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 those occurring in Europe, such as Britain's lack of allies. In 1770, Samuel Adams had begun agitating for

720-607: A second planned expedition to the storehouse in Worcester . He concentrated his troops in Boston, and called for reinforcements from London, writing "if you think ten thousand men sufficient, send twenty; if one million is thought enough, give two; you save both blood and treasure in the end." However, Gage's request was seen by some in London as absurd, as there were only 12,000 troops in Britain at

800-506: A seizure of stores at Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth, New Hampshire , was imminent. He rode from Boston to Portsmouth the next day to notify the local Patriots, who quickly raided the fort on December 14 and removed its supplies. Revere's intelligence had been incorrect; although a British operation had been contemplated, it had not been ordered. The British did send ships carrying troops to Portsmouth, and they arrived three days after

880-471: A significant role in distributing this information because of his geographical position in Boston, his social position as a middle-class craftsman in contact with all social classes, and his political position as a well-known Patriot propagandist and organizer. On September 21, Patriot leaders met in Worcester and urged town meetings to organize a third of the militias into special companies of minutemen in constant readiness to march. They also instituted

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960-452: Is a 2004 organization that opposes Mexican immigration to US. Minutemen are also featured in 2010 strategic video game Civilization V by Firaxis . They can only be recruited by American Civilization and production is only available after researching Gunpowder technology in the game feature, which takes place in the Renaissance era. Powder Alarm The Massachusetts Powder Alarm

1040-564: Is named "Minutemen" to highlight the rapid deployment and mobility nature of their mission. One of the factions in Bethesda 's 2015 video game Fallout 4 , which is set in Massachusetts, is called the "Commonwealth Minutemen". The inspiration for their namesake comes from the requirement to be ready "at a minute's notice" to defend any settlement in danger. Sinclair Lewis portrays Minute Men as paramilitary forces of Buzz Windrip 's despotic government in his 1935 book It Can't Happen Here . In

1120-611: Is widely asserted, the captain of the Acton militia and first to be killed in Concord during the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, but rather French used live models in the study of the anatomy and facial expression. The Minute Man statue is still the symbol of the National Guard , featured prominently on its seals. It was also the symbol of the former Boston and Maine Railroad . Minutemen are portrayed in " Paul Revere's Ride ",

1200-534: The New England colonies were organized in regiments by county. The militia and minutemen companies still were organized by town and trained typically as an entire unit in each town two to four times a year with the Minutemen receiving extra training. From the end of the French and Indian War , this was normal during peacetime but, in the 1770s, as friction with The Crown increased and the possibility of war became apparent,

1280-455: The Powder Alarm of 1774. Militia companies were called out to engage British troops, who had been 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 had returned to Boston. The reorganization increased the total size of the militia as well. During the French and Indian Wars , the counties in

1360-535: The Thirteen Colonies began to muster in preparation for the fighting. 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

1440-520: The thirteen British colonies , in response to unpopular British actions and the negative British reaction to the Gaspee Affair (the destruction by colonists of a grounded ship involved in enforcing customs regulations ), elected to form Committees of Correspondence . These allowed communities to formally communicate with each other, raise awareness of incidents occurring elsewhere, and to coordinate actions; as such, they became instrumental in managing

1520-600: The 2003 rebranding featuring a modernized Sam the Minuteman , the logo featured the Concord Minute Man statue prominently. The U.S. Air Force named the LGM-30 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile the "Minuteman", which was designed for rapid deployment in the event of a nuclear attack . The "Minuteman III" LGM-30G remains in service. The U.S. Navy VR-55 Fleet Logistic Support Squadron

1600-423: The British stronghold on Castle Island , then known as Castle William (renamed Fort Independence in 1779). False rumors flew throughout the day across the countryside about the British troop movements. The regulars were marching; provincial powder had been seized; war was at hand; people had been killed; Boston was being bombarded by His Majesty's warships. The alarm spread as far as Connecticut. From all over

1680-536: The Committees of Correspondence to hold County Conventions to revamp the militia. 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 that 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

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1760-586: 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 a boycott in 1774 of British goods. The Minutemen were aware of this as well. With

1840-460: The New England colonies had provided provincial regiments to the armies of the Crown. In Massachusetts, Middlesex County provided two while most had provided one (except Worcester which had provided three). The new reorganization provided six regiments of militia with a nominal strength of 9,000 men with minuteman companies being formed from the younger, more physically fit men. The militia in New England

1920-563: The annihilation or surrender of the original road column. While a lot of Colonial militia units did not receive either arms or uniforms and were required to equip themselves, through colonial history both the Crown and local governments had issued arms and sometimes uniforms for provincial soldiers. Many simply wore their own farmers' or workmen's clothes and, in some cases, they wore cloth hunting frocks. Many farmers who owned separate guns such as fowling pieces , and sometimes rifles (though rarer in southern New England) would use them instead of

2000-461: The area, and the British moved on. The British then moved to Concord and faced a larger number of militia. The British were rapidly outnumbered at Concord, with the arrival of the slower moving militia; they had not counted on a long fight, and so had not brought additional ammunition beyond the standard issue in the soldiers' cartridge boxes. This then forced a strategic defeat on Colonel Smith, forcing him back to Boston. A "running fight" began during

2080-461: 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 behind other troops, before the British could get into range. The wilderness terrain that lay just beyond many colonial towns favored this style of combat and

2160-415: The battlefield. It is a myth that the British and other professional armies of the 1700s did not practice marksmanship with their muskets; the military ammunition of the time was made for fast reloading and more than a dozen consecutive shots without cleaning. Accuracy of the musket was sacrificed for speed and repetitive loading. The militia prepared with elaborate plans to alarm and respond to movements by

2240-546: The best way to accomplish this was by secretly removing military supplies from storehouses and arsenals in New England . The secrecy of these missions was paramount, as Gage feared that leakage of any plans would result in the seizure or concealment of the stores by Patriot sympathizers before his men got there. There were several places throughout the colonies where the British army had stockpiled supplies. Some of these places were fortifications that were manned by small garrisons ; others were merely locked magazines. Most of

2320-454: The bombardment of Boston, which made us completely miserable for two days, we saw proofs of both the sympathy and the resolution of the continent. War! war! war! was the cry, and it was pronounced in a tone which would have done honor to the oratory of a Briton or a Roman. If it had proved true, you would have heard the thunder of an American Congress. Gage, surprised by the size and scope of the colonial reaction, delayed and eventually cancelled

2400-403: The book, the fascist-like militia is called "Minnie Mouses" by the populace. In Alan Moore 's Watchmen graphic novel the first masked vigilantes assembled are titled the Minutemen. The Minutemen was a militant anti-communist organization in the early 1960s. The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was a militant anti-Mexican immigrants volunteer group formed in 2005. The Minuteman Project

2480-539: The centenary of the first engagement of the American Revolution, Daniel Chester French , in his first major commission, produced one of his best-known statues (along with the Lincoln Memorial ), The Minute Man . Inscribed on the pedestal is the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson 's 1837 " Concord Hymn " with the words, " Shot heard 'round the world ." The statue's likeness is not based on Isaac Davis as

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2560-456: The colonial agrarian society, many were familiar with hunting. The Indian Wars , and especially the recent French and Indian War , had given colonials valuable experience in irregular warfare and skirmishing, while British line companies (light infantry and grenadier companies were called flank companies and trained in skirmishing) troops were less familiar with this. The long rifle was also well suited to this role. The rifling (grooves inside

2640-564: The colonial response to enforcement of the Tea Act , the Intolerable Acts , and other unpopular British colonial legislation. The colonists of Massachusetts had not yet taken concerted action to organize themselves militarily against actions of the British regulars, although statements were made about supporting Boston (whose port had been closed earlier in 1774 under the Boston Port Act ) "at

2720-409: 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

2800-558: 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

2880-522: The colonists and the Crown, it escalated them. That same month, Parliament passed "An Act for the better regulating the Government of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay" and "An Act for the more impartial administration of justice in said Province," otherwise known as the Intolerable Acts , which were designed to remove power from the towns. This brought many more citizens to Samuel Adams's side, and he pressed

2960-401: The companies into battalions, and chose the field-officers to command the same. Hence the minute-men became a body distinct from the rest of the militia, and, by being more devoted to military exercises, they acquired skill in the use of arms. More attention than formerly was likewise bestowed on the training and drilling of militia. The need for efficient minuteman companies was illustrated by

3040-562: The council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency", resolving to re-organize and increase the size of the militia: The Massachusetts General Assembly was stymied by Governor Hutchinson from passing a bill. As a result, resisting legislators, including Samuel Adams being among the leaders, set up Committees of Correspondence in parallel with their fellow Patriots in Connecticut , New Hampshire , and Rhode Island that recommended that

3120-474: The days ahead, and essentially provided a "dress rehearsal" for the Battles of Lexington and Concord seven and a half months later. Furthermore, actions on both sides to control weaponry, gunpowder, and other military supplies became more contentious, as the British sought to bring military stores more directly under their control, and the Patriot colonists sought to acquire them for their own use. In 1772, many of

3200-477: The fort's supplies were removed. The first arrived on December 17 and was directed into shallows at high tide by a local Patriot pilot, much to the captain's anger. Stores of gunpowder—typically referred to by Loyalists as "the King's powder" but by Patriots as "the militia's powder"—were also carried off from forts in Newport, Rhode Island , Providence, Rhode Island , and New London, Connecticut , and distributed to

3280-423: The general ranks of "town-based training band" to be ready for rapid deployment. Men so selected were designated as minutemen. Their companies were organized by town, so it was very common for their counterpart militia company to contain relatives and friends. Some towns in Massachusetts had a long history of designating a portion of their militia as minutemen, with "minute companies" constituting special units within

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3360-534: The incidents that caused the march and the arrival of Endecott's men in the area. Once they got there, they did not know which Indians to fight or why. This feeble response served to encourage the Indians, and attacks increased on the settlers in the Connecticut Valley. In the following year, the Province of Massachusetts Bay again put a force on the field in collaboration with Plymouth Colony and Connecticut. By

3440-459: 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

3520-440: 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 Second Indian War broke out in 1689, and militiamen throughout

3600-420: The militia and a report on the number and condition of the units' weapons. Another mission was military training to prepare the provincial soldiers for combat and the nature of that combat. Since British doctrine usually counted on the militia as augmentees to the regular forces as skirmishers and irregular auxiliaries, the provincial soldiers were more frequently trained as irregulars or skirmishers rather than in

3680-521: The militia be designated as minutemen. Military stores were to be stockpiled away from the coast (more than a convenient day's march), to make attempts to seize them more difficult. The largest stockpiles were located at Concord and Worcester. Early in December 1774, British military command voted to prohibit the export of arms and powder to North America and to secure all remaining stores. On December 12, intelligence received by Paul Revere indicated that

3760-433: The militia increase in size and reorganize and form special companies of minutemen, who should be equipped and prepared to march at the shortest notice. These minutemen were to comprise one-quarter of the whole militia, to be enlisted under the direction of the field-officers, and divide into companies, consisting of at least 50 men each. The privates were to choose their captains and subalterns, and these officers were to form

3840-411: The militia muskets if the muskets they bought for their duties were old or inoperative. These pieces gradually appeared in quantity, but neither fowling pieces nor rifles had bayonets . Some colonies purchased muskets, cartridge boxes, and bayonets from England, and maintained armories within the colony. Muskets were usually shipped to Crown authorities, where they became provincial arms and then sold to

3920-520: The militia system whose members underwent additional training and held themselves ready to respond at a minute's notice to emergencies, which gave rise to their name as Minutemen. The immediate predecessor to the organized Minuteman concept colony-wide was the Picket Guard, a concept of a rapid responder that never came to fruition because the legislation in the Colony of Massachusetts House of Representatives

4000-593: The militia trained three to four times a week. In response to these tensions, the Massachusetts Provincial legislators found that the colony's militia resources were short just before the American Revolutionary War , on October 26, 1774, after observing the British military buildup. They found that, "including the sick and absent, it amounted to about 17,000 men, far short of the number wanted, that

4080-482: The militia would not interfere 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 British officers were proven wrong. Shooting erupted at Lexington . There is still a debate as to whether it was a colonist or a British soldier who fired the first shot. The militia left

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4160-466: The militias in towns away from the coast. Cannon and other supplies were smuggled out of Boston and Charlestown. On February 27, 1775, HMS Lively brought a force of about 240 British regulars from the 64th Regiment under Colonel Alexander Leslie to confiscate weapons in Salem, Massachusetts . They were stopped by a small crowd that raised a drawbridge in their path and taunted them while others moved

4240-415: The motive being that ranking officers in the militia could be considered strong Loyalists. Officers were then elected by their regiments. In turn, the officers then appointed one third of their militia regiment as Minutemen. Other counties followed Worcester's lead, electing new militia officers and appointing Minutemen. The British practiced formations with their weapons, focusing on marching formations on

4320-457: The organization and staffing of three Minuteman regiments by April 1775. In August 1636, the first offensive military attack by militias failed when Massachusetts dispatched John Endecott with four companies on an unsuccessful campaign against the Pequot Indians. According to one account, the expedition succeeded only in killing one Indian and burning some wigwams . Weeks elapsed between

4400-421: The organized militia. The Continental Army regulars received European-style military training later in the American Revolutionary War, but the militias did not get much of this. Like the militia organization itself, training day had a large administrative mission. Four times each year, militia companies were legally obligated to document all persons living within their areas of responsibility who qualified for

4480-597: The overall militia regimental organizations in the New England Colonies . The term has also been applied to various later United States civilian paramilitary forces. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony , all able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to participate in their local militia company. As early as 1645 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, some men were selected from

4560-499: The powder in these was under the control of the provincial government, though some was the property of individual towns. One locked storehouse near Boston, in what was then part of Charlestown , now Powder House Square in Somerville , was controlled by William Brattle , the leader of the provincial militia and an appointee of the governor. Brattle, who had not obviously sided with either Loyalists or Patriots, notified Governor Gage in

4640-560: The powder; Gage had requested from him an accounting of the storehouse's contents, and he had complied. The content of his letter to Gage would be published on September 5. Brattle remained on Castle Island through the siege of Boston , leaving when the British evacuated the city in March 1776. He died in Halifax, Nova Scotia , in October 1776 at the age of 70. When the horrid news was brought here of

4720-401: The protection of the military. Sheriff Phips was forced, in writing, to dissociate himself from any and all government actions. Eventually facts caught up with the rumors, and militia units (some of which were still heading toward Boston) returned home. Also on September 2, Boston newspapers published a letter from William Brattle in which he protested that he had not warned Gage to remove

4800-523: The provincial powder before Patriots could seize it. Early in the morning of September 1, a force of roughly 260 British regulars from the 4th Regiment , under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Maddison, was rowed in secrecy up the Mystic River from Boston to a landing point near Winter Hill in modern-day Somerville . From there they marched about a mile (1.6 km) to the Powder House ,

4880-547: The provincials. For 50 miles around Boston, militiamen were marching in response. By noon the next day, almost 4,000 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 current militia officers resign;

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4960-468: The region, people took up arms and began streaming toward Boston. One traveler in Shrewsbury reported that in the space of 15 minutes, 50 men had gathered, equipped themselves, sent out messengers to surrounding towns, and left for Boston. On September 2, several thousand men bent on violence gathered in Cambridge, where they forced several notable Loyalists, including William Brattle, to flee to Boston and

5040-512: The remainder of the American Revolution, militias moved to adopting the minuteman model for rapid mobilization. With this rapid mustering of forces, the militia proved its value by augmenting the Continental Army on a temporary basis, occasionally leading to instances of numerical superiority. This was seen at the Battles of Hubbardton and Bennington in the north and at Camden and Cowpens in

5120-467: The rest of the militia. Some also expended time, money, and effort to make sure their Minutemen were well-armed. For example, Captain Isaac Davis who was a gunsmith in his civilian occupation built a firing range on his farm to train his men in firing and drill. He also made sure that every man in his company had a good musket, cartridge box, canteen, and bayonet. This was one of the reasons that his company

5200-423: The retreat. Militiamen knew the local countryside and were familiar with "skulking" or "Indian warfare". They used trees and other obstacles to cover themselves from British gunfire and pursuit by British soldiers, while the militia were firing and moving. This kept the British under sporadic fire, and caused them to exhaust their limited ammunition. Only the timely arrival of a relief column under Lord Percy prevented

5280-654: The risque of our lives and fortunes." General Thomas Gage , who had become the military governor of Massachusetts in May 1774, was charged with enforcement of the highly unpopular Intolerable Acts , which British Parliament had passed in response to the Boston Tea Party . Seeking to prevent the outbreak of war and to keep the peace between the American Patriot (Whig) majority and the Loyalist (Tory) minority, he believed that

5360-452: The south. Cowpens is notable in that Daniel Morgan used the militia's strengths and weaknesses skilfully to attain the double-envelopment of Tarleton 's forces. Historian M. L. Brown states that some of these men mastered the difficult handling of a rifle, though few became expert. Brown quotes Continental Army soldier Benjamin Thompson, who expressed the "common sentiment" at the time, which

5440-604: The system of express riders and alarms that would prove to be critical at Lexington and Concord . In October, the former legislature of Massachusetts met in defiance of the Massachusetts Government Act and declared itself to be the First Provincial Congress. It created a Committee of Safety modeled after a body with the same name during the English Civil War and it recommended that a quarter of

5520-502: The time that 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. 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

5600-462: The time, but he did eventually receive an additional 400 Marines in response to these requests. He later began planning and executing seizures again, and he further fortified the Boston peninsula. After the Powder Alarm, militia forces throughout New England were more cautious with their supplies and more intent on gaining information about Gage's plans and troop movements. Paul Revere played

5680-530: The towns or individuals who would pay for them as only the wealthy few could purchase arms directly from arms manufacturers. On several occasions, the Crown authorities had issued muskets as recruitment tools, such as for the 1709 Quebec expedition and the 1710 Port Royal expedition. The Crown often used such opportunities to clear their storehouses of outmoded and inferior weapons, but local Crown authorities were horrified and it became more usual for provincial troops to turn in muskets unless they bought them for use in

5760-444: The traditional dense lines and columns. When used in conjunction with continental regulars, the militia would frequently fire ragged irregular volleys from a forward skirmish line or from the flanks of the Continental Army, while Continental soldiers held the center. Minutemen tended to get more training in line tactics and drill than the regular militia. Many Minutemen company commanders put their men through more training separate from

5840-420: Was a major popular reaction to the removal of gunpowder from a magazine near Boston by British soldiers under orders from General Thomas Gage , royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay , on September 1, 1774. In response to this action, amid rumors that blood had been shed, alarm spread through the countryside to Connecticut and beyond, and American Patriots sprang into action, fearing that war

5920-565: Was at hand. Thousands of militiamen began streaming toward Boston and Cambridge , and mob action forced Loyalists and some government officials to flee to the protection of the British Army . A similar event, also called The Powder Alarm , occurred in Virginia in April, 1775. Although it proved to be a false alarm, the Powder Alarm caused political and military leaders to proceed more carefully in

6000-583: Was in the lead of Colonel Barrett's Middlesex Minutemen regiment as the Rebels marched down to face the regulars at the Old North Bridge at the Battle of Concord. There were still some cases where men in the Minuteman companies had to be provided arms. In Concord's two Minutemen companies, fifteen of the 104 still needed to be provided with muskets from the town's arsenal. Their experience suited irregular warfare. In

6080-442: Was never passed because the war ended. Members of the minutemen, in contrast to the regular militia, 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 were elected by popular vote, as in the rest of the militia, and each unit drafted a formal written covenant to be signed upon enlistment. The militia in

6160-557: Was still midway through the process of splitting the Minutemen companies from the regular militia companies into their own regiments by the spring of 1775. For example, the old 2nd Middlesex Regiment of Foot, a provincial unit that had seen action in the French and Indian Wars, divided into a militia regiment under Colonel David Green and a Minuteman regiment Colonel Ebenezer Bridge. Colonel William Prescott's Middlesex regiment had not yet split and had ten companies of militia and seven of minutemen. Worcester County had managed to already complete

6240-484: Was that minutemen were notoriously poor marksmen with rifles: "Instead of being the best marksmen in the world and picking off every Regular that was to be seen, the continual firing which they kept up by the week and the month has had no other effect than to waste their ammunition and convince the King's troops that they are really not really so formidable." There was a shortage of ammunition and supplies, and what they had were constantly being seized by British patrols. As

6320-521: Was very familiar to the local militia. In time, however, loyalists such as John Butler and 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

6400-561: 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

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