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Minute Men of the Revolution
Minutemen were members of
teams of select men from the American colonial militia during the
American Revolutionary War. They vowed to be ready for battle
against the British within one minute of receiving notice. These
teams consisted about a fourth of the entire militia, and generally
were the younger and more mobile, serving as part of a network for
early response to any threat. Minuteman and Sons of Liberty member
Paul Revere spread the news that "the red coats are coming." Paul
Revere was captured before completing his mission when the British
marched towards the arsenal in Lexington and Concord to collect the
patriots' weapons.
The term minuteman has also been applied to various later United
States' military units 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. They were trained to respond "at a
minutes warning". 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 quickly ("at a minute's notice") for emergencies.
Other towns, such as Lexington, preferred to keep their entire
militia in a single unit.
The minutemen were 25 years old or younger, 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 to be signed upon enlistment. The
militia typically assembled as an entire unit in each town between
two and four times per year for training during peacetime, but as
the inevitability of a war became apparent, the militia trained more
often. The minute companies trained three to four times per week. 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, sometimes even in the midst of battle.
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 it, "including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen
thousand men ... this was 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.
They recommended to the militia to form themselves into companies of
minute-men, who should be equipped and prepared to march at the
shortest notice. These minute-men were to consist of one quarter of
the whole militia, to be enlisted under the direction of the
field-officers, and divide into companies, consisting of at least
fifty men each. The privates were to choose their captains and
subalterns, and these officers were to form 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 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.
American Revolutionary War
period
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 from doing something they didn’t
like. Gage responded by marching to collect gunpowder 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.
Worcester came up with a new militia 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 marched out hundreds of regulars nearly every week, mainly
because he wanted to show the provincials he was the more powerful
among them. The Minutemen would respond by mustering to their town
centers, standing there with guns and calling them “lobsterbacks.”
When it came to practicing formations with their weapons, the
British mainly only practiced on formations and marching. Their men
really never got a chance to shoot because they were crowded into
Boston with no room to shoot without ruining buildings or hitting
civilians. The British had worked it into their minds that no
civilian force could stand against them, so they thought there would
be no reason for them to practice shooting. The New Englanders were
facing a large imperial army, and they had the room and the insight
to practice not only marching in formations but shooting from long
distances and shooting for accuracy. In gathering and standing
around their town centers, a sort of bonding between the Minutemen
began. Regular practice in musters increased their militia’s
effectiveness, and the Minutemen got additional practice from
responding to the British marches into their territory.
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