Artemas Ward (November 26, 1727 – October 28, 1800) was an American major general in the American Revolutionary War and a Congressman from Massachusetts. He was considered an effective political leader, President John Adams describing him as "universally esteemed, beloved, and confided in by his army and his country".

Artemas Ward was born at Shrewsbury in the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1727 to Nahum Ward (1684–1754) and Martha (Howe) Ward. He was the sixth of seven children. His father had broad and successful career interests as a sea captain, merchant, land developer, farmer, lawyer and jurist. As a child he attended the common schools and shared a tutor with his brothers and sisters. He graduated from Harvard in 1748 and taught there briefly.

On July 31, 1750, he married Sarah Trowbridge (December 3, 1724 – December 13, 1788), the daughter of Reverend Caleb Trowbridge and Hannah Trowbridge of Groton. The young couple returned to Shrewsbury where Artemas opened a general store. In the next fifteen years they would have eight children: Ithamar in 1752, Nahum (1754), Sara (1756), Thomas (1758), Artemas Jr. (1762), Henry Dana (1768), Martha (1760), and Maria (1764).

In 1751, at age 23 or 24, he was named a township assessor for Worcester County, the first of many public offices he was to fill. In 1752 he was elected a justice of the peace and to the first of many terms in the Massachusetts provincial assembly, or "general court."

Between 1755 and 1757, Ward was called to active duty at intervals that alternated with his attendance at the General Court. In 1755 the Massachusetts militia was restructured for the war; Ward was made a major in the 3rd Regiment which drew its company mainly from Worcester County. The 3rd primarily served as a garrison force along the frontier in western Massachusetts. In 1757 he was promoted to regimental colonel of the 3rd Regiment of the militias of Middlesex and Worcester counties. In 1758 the regiment marched with Abercrombie's force to sortie on Fort Ticonderoga, but Ward was sidelined during the campaign by an "attack of the stone."

By 1762, Ward returned to Shrewsbury permanently and was named to the Court of Common Pleas. In the General Court (the provincial assembly) he, with Samuel Adams and John Hancock, was appointed to the taxation committee. On the floor, he was second only to James Otis in speaking out against the acts of parliament in London. His prominence in these debates prompted the Royal Governor Francis Bernard to revoke his military commission in 1767. At the next election in 1768, Bernard voided the election results for Worcester and banned Ward from the assembly, but this didn't silence him.

In the growing sentiment favoring rebellion, the 3rd Regiment resigned en masse from British service on October 3, 1774. They then marched on Shrewsbury to inform Ward that they had unanimously elected him their leader. Later that month the governor abolished the assembly. The towns of Massachusetts responded by setting up a colony-wide Committee of Safety. One of the first actions of the committee was to name Ward as general and commander-in-chief of the colony's militia.

Following the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the rebel (colonial) forces followed the British troops back to Boston and deployed to start the Siege of Boston, cutting all land access to the city. At first Ward directed his forces from his sickbed (in Shrewsbury), later moving his headquarters to Cambridge. Soon, both the New Hampshire and Connecticut provisional governments named him commander of their forces participating in the siege. Most of his efforts during this time were devoted to organization and supply problems.