Minutemen

Following the Pequot War of 1636 to 1638, leaders in the New England colonies began to recognize the need for a fast-response company within a given town’s militia, and while men between the ages of 16 to 60 were generally required to participate in their local militia, as early as 1645, elite companies of “training bands” were chosen for their youth, enthusiasm, political reliability and physical strength.

Renamed Minutemen

Renamed Minutemen for their ability to turn out rapidly for defense emergencies—so named for their “at a minute’s notice” mantra—Minutemen were selected from the general ranks of a given town’s population, and while they generally made up a quarter of a militia’s ranks, all town-centric Minutemen and militiamen found themselves fighting alongside relatives and friends. While most town militias accepted able-bodied men up to 60 years of age,

Men Under 30 Only

Minutemen companies required their members to be less than 30 years old, and while Minutemen received additional training beyond that of militiamen, after the French and Indian War, all militiamen trained two to four times a year, until friction with the Crown in the 1770s increased militia training to three to four times a week. Minutemen training demands reached its zenith after the Powder Alarm of 1774, when militiamen called out to block a column of British regulars from seizing arms at Cambridge and Charlestown failed to show up in time to engage the British before their safe passage back to Boston.

First Elite Fighting Units

Considered precursors to elite fighting units such as the Navy Seals, the Green Berets or the Rangers, Minutemen companies were generally made up of at least 50 men each, electing their own field officers and subalterns before forming up into battalions brought together from multiple New England communities, becoming a body distinct from the rest of the militia that proved to be instrumental fighting units during the course of the Revolutionary War, making Colonial Minutemen, some of the first defenders of a nation’s ongoing fight for democracy and freedom.