The statue depicts a minuteman stepping away from his plow to join the patriot forces at the Battle of Concord, at the start of the American Revolutionary War.

Based on Daniel Chester French's journals, modern art historians have shown that the Apollo Belvedere was only one of several statues that were used in the research for The Minute Man.

[5] In response to the growing stockpile of arms, British Army General Thomas Gage sent spies to Concord to survey the preparations.

[6] Based on the reports from spies and instructions from Secretary of State for America William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, Gage ordered a preemptive strike on Concord.

[8] The militiamen were alerted to the British advance by Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott who traveled from Boston.

After the donation, the town had Solomon Willard design a simple 25-foot-tall (7.6-meter) granite obelisk to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Concord.

[26] According to Harold Holzer, because French was a handsome man, "there would be a line of young women outside his studio ready to show him their alleged Colonial artifacts" to help him with his research.

[25] The miniature version of the statue won a local art competition in September 1873, but the pose of the figure was deemed "awkwardly stiff" by critics.

[30] Because the town did not have the money to cast the statue in bronze, through a bill introduced by Ebenezer R. Hoar, the United States Congress appropriated ten Civil War-era cannons[note 2] to the project.

[25] The statue was unveiled on April 19, 1875, during the centennial celebration of the Battle of Concord, in a ceremony attended by President Ulysses S. Grant and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[41] Nineteenth- and twentieth-century art critics, such as Lorado Taft and H. C. Howard, have suggested that the pose was directly copied from the Roman sculpture.

Several architects submitted designs to the town, including French's brother, but the competition was won by James Elliot Cabot.

[49] Beneath the pedestal is a copper time capsule from 1875 that contains items from past celebrations of the battle, maps, and photographs of both the sculpture and sculptor.

[44] In 1975, a second time capsule was placed beneath the pedestal that included Girl Scouts USA pins, the United States Bicentennial's flag, and a cassette tape.

[50] Anna Seaton-Schmidt referred to it as "the most inspiring of our soldier monuments" in her 1922 biography of French in The American Magazine of Art.

[51] The Boston National Historic Sites Commission claimed the statue "perfectly personifies the American Patriot" in their 1959 interim report.

[41] Chris Bergeron from The MetroWest Daily News describes The Minute Man as "naturalistic detail imbued with an idealistic effect".

[40] Harold Holzer describes the statue as representative of French's style of "naturalism, a great feeling of humanity, and connection to the subject".

[24] Louisa May Alcott, writing for Woman's Journal, commented on the lack of place for women in its unveiling ceremony.

[53] The Minute Man was widely used by the US government to evoke the idea of the citizen-soldier, commemorate the Battle of Concord, and serve as a symbol for Massachusetts.

[54][55] In 1925, the United States Post Office Department released a five-cent stamp depicting the statue and verses from "Concord Hymn".