It was the MILITIA that stood on Lexington common and behind fences , walls, and trees from Concord back to Boston.
Famous Quote from George Mason
"Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country...?
I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people,
except a few public officers." Quote by: George Mason
(1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington
Source: in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 16, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.425 (Philadelphia, 1836)