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Please? I assume you referenced the "Minutemen" because you know who Captain Isaac Davis was. Great, and all too rare!

It is pure myth that the units that fought that fateful April were irregulars, for they were part of relatively well-trained and armed civil defense units -- with rules and regs to govern them, including who could participate. The operative phrase below is "citizen" of the colony, and even then including only "gentlemen, freeholders, and other freemen." Non-citizens (as in non-naturalized immigrants), slaves, indebted people, or those of questionable character were not allowed to serve in a militia unit in MA anyway. As you will read below, officers were actually elected at town levels (non-citizens could not participate). This comes from numerous histories, not just the quote below...

From a history of the militia...
"In September 1774 the Continental Congress endorsed a resolution from Suffolk County, Massachusetts, calling for the colonies to reorganize the militias under leadership friendly to the "rights of the people," setting in motion a series of provincial actions that made the militia the cornerstone of armed resistance to British policy through the winter of 1775. Massachusetts moved first to revive the militia's ancient function as the armed guarantor of the civil constitution. In October 1774, the provincial congress instructed local committees of safety to assume responsibility for the training, supply, and mobilization of the colony's militia system. It also directed the CITIZENS in their capacity as militiamen, and "with due deliberation and patriotic regard for the public service," to elect their own company officers. Those chosen in local voting were to elect regimental officers to command the militia at the county level. The provincial congress retained the power to appoint general officers, ensuring that the military order remained ultimately subordinate to civil authority.

"Resolving "that a well-regulated Militia, composed of the gentlemen, freeholders, and other freemen, is the natural strength and only stable security of a free Government," the Maryland convention acted in December 1774 to reorganize its militia under a popularly elected officers corp. ...Six month later, in an effort to provide a source of manpower for the newly formed Continental army, Congress recommended that all states adopt the republican principles embodied in the Massachusetts militia structure - Cress, pp. 48-49

Republican principles in the officers corps...interesting.