John Parker

Captain of the Lexington militia at the opening battle of the Revolution. Confusingly, his men were an older-style "training band," not minutemen. He was dying of tuberculosis at the time.

His famous line — "stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here" — is probably part real, part 19th-century polish, popularized by a grandson who wasn't there. Nobody knows who fired the first shot at Lexington; it is genuinely unsolved.