Minutemen were farmers, merchants, townsfolk, armed with a Kentucky or Pennsylvania Rifle. Unlike the Limey Brown Bess, American rifles were accurate as hell, usually up to 300 yards. They had to be. These were hunting rifles.
Fighting guerilla style or behind fortifications the Minutemen were almost unmovable.*
In the open field they couldn't stand up to the British though, as proven again and again at Brooklyn Heights, Brandywine, Camden, etc etc.
In the southern campaign General Daniel Morgan figured out how to use the Minutemen in the field. At Cowpens he arrayed them in line, told them to fire off two volleys and then run like hell. Waiting behind the Minutemen was a line of Continental Army troops. This tactic defeated the Brits at Cowpens and worked again at Guilford Courthouse, the most ferocious battle of the war.**
Under the right circumstances the Minutemen were devastating.
*They ran out of ammo at Bunker Hill. ** Ok the Brits won the battlefield but were so bloodied they had to withdraw...to Yorktown.
The Minutemen shot the shit out of the Brits at Lexington Concord and then shot the crap out of them at Bunker Hill. General Washington arrived and one night set up a bunch of guns on Dorchester Heights and told the British to get out or else.
From there Washington didn't do so good. Lord Howe kicked his butt at Brooklyn Heights and then chased him up the Hudson River Valley. By December Washington knew he had to do something drastic or lose the war. He attacked at Trenton and then Princeton and saved America.
But the toil continued. General Howe gave Washington a royal ass whooping at Brandywine and took Philadelphia. Washington's attack at Germantown was overcomplicated and failed. From there he went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. The Continental Army trained and came out of Valley Forge itching for a fight.
Washington attacked the British at Monmouth, a large, complex and tactically inconclusive draw but a strategic victory for the Americans as the Continental Army showed it could go musket to musket against the Brits.
From that point on the British could not win the war.
