Minutemen
Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Minutemen provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that enabled the colonies to respond immediately to military threats. They were an evolution from the prior colonial rapid-response units.
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 the overall militia regimental organizations in the New England Colonies.
The term has also been applied to various later United States civilian paramilitary forces.
History
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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 the organization and staffing of three Minuteman regiments by April 1775.
Pequot War
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 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 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.
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. 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 Second Indian War broke out in 1689, and militiamen throughout 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 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 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.