Isaac Davis (February 23, 1745 – April 19, 1775) was a gunsmith and a militia officer who commanded a company of Minutemen from Acton, Massachusetts, during the first battle of the American Revolutionary War.

In the months leading up to the Revolution, Davis set unusually high standards for his company in terms of equipment, training, and preparedness.

These protests eventually resulted in the military occupation of the provincial capital of Boston, Massachusetts, which, consequently caused further unrest.

In October 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress recommended that each town establish a company of Minutemen—specially trained militia who could be ready at short notice in the event that the British Regulars in Boston attempted any warlike movements.

Most provincial Minuteman companies, unlike professional soldiers, were not equipped with bayonets for use in close combat and they typically re-loaded using powder horns, a slow method more suited to hunting than to battle.

"[9] During the early spring of 1775, Gage planned an expedition to confiscate a large stockpile of gunpowder and weapons kept by the provincials in Concord, Massachusetts.

Concluding that a British movement was imminent, Paul Revere, a messenger for the provincial Sons of Liberty, was sent to Concord on April 16 to warn the inhabitants.

[10] On the night of April 18, 1775, Gage dispatched approximately 700 British Regulars under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith.

[11] The Sons of Liberty in Boston were convinced that the British troops would also attempt to capture the provincial leaders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Messengers Paul Revere and William Dawes therefore rode again on the night of April 18 to warn Hancock and Adams that the soldiers were marching from Boston.

[14] Word of the British movement reached Acton just before dawn on April 19, most likely delivered by Dr. Samuel Prescott, a resident of Concord and one of the Sons of Liberty.

While waiting for others to arrive, the men made paper cartridges and some powdered their hair with flour so as to appear more like gentlemen when they met the British in battle.

He then diverted his company off the road, avoiding the British at Barrett's farm and marching past a tavern belonging to a Widow Brown.

There is also a tradition that the Acton musicians played the White Cockade later when Davis's company led the advance on the British at the Old North Bridge, although this too is not supported by primary source accounts.

[21] Shortly after Davis arrived, Barrett called a council of the officers present to determine whether or not to attack the Regulars at the bridge.

The remains of Davis, Hosmer, and James Hayward (an Acton soldier who was killed in Lexington later in the battle) were moved and re-interred beneath the monument.

[26] In 1875, on the centennial of the Battle of Concord, a statue called The Minute Man was placed on the approximate site of Isaac Davis's death.

[27] On the base of the statue is inscribed the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn written in 1836: By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.