Minutemen were volunteer soldiers who fought for the American Colonies against Britain (now also called the United Kingdom) at the beginning of the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783). Just before the war, they were trained and organized into military companies. They were called minutemen because they were ready to fight “at a minute’s notice.”
When the Massachusetts militia was reorganized in 1774, the Provincial Congress provided that one-third of all the new regiments were to be made up of minutemen. The most famous action of the minutemen occurred on April 19, 1775, at Lexington and Concord, where they fought side by side with the militia. Minutemen groups disappeared when regular armies were formed.
