List of United States Army units with colonial roots

[1] The first major military action of the Middlesex Regiment was in King Philip’s War (1675–1676), a conflict that had profound effects on the colonization of New England and the fate of the Native people there.

King Philip, a Wampanoag chief whose Indian name was Metacom, organized a confederation of tribes to resist the expansion of white settlements in southern New England.

This campaign, involving approximately a thousand militiamen from the Connecticut, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies, was a pre-emptive strike on the fortified winter encampment of the Narragansetts, who had remained neutral in the conflict up to that time but whom the colonists feared might join forces with King Philip.

The war ended in 1676 when King Philip was hunted down and killed near Swansea, his body drawn and quartered, and his head displayed on a pole in Plymouth.

Elements of the Hampshire and Berkshire County Brigades were called into active service at various times during the Revolutionary War, and additionally provided five regiments that became part of the Continental Army.

The 101st Engineer Battalion originated as the East Regiment, formed in the Massachusetts Militia on December 13, 1636, from existing units at Saugus, Salem, Ipswich, and Newbury.

The 101st Field Artillery traces its origins back to new and existing train bands in Boston, Dorcester, Roxbury, Weymouth and Hingham that were organized on December 13, 1636, as the South Regiment.

[18] Revolutionary War Campaigns: New York 1776 and Rhode Island 1777 The 772nd Military Police Company traces its origins to the Cohannet Train Band, Plymouth Colony Militia, organized on March 3, 1638.

The shield of the DUI of the 164th Transportation Battalion is the coat or arms approved for the old 241st Coast Artillery Regiment within a gold border, indicating descent from that organization.

[27] According to a story often featured in publications by the West Virginia National Guard, when Hugh Stephenson’s and Daniel Morgan’s Independent Companies of Virginia Riflemen arrived in Boston shortly after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, General Washington rode out to meet them, dismounted, took every man by his hand, and proclaimed “Let me plant my banner in West Augusta and I will surround it with fighting men who will drive the invaders from our land.”[29] However, David McCullough presents a somewhat different reaction to the mountain men, based upon accounts by a Boston physician named James Thacher.

To quote McCullough, “Welcome as they were at first, the riflemen soon proved even more indifferent to discipline than the New Englanders, and obstreperous to the point that Washington began to wish they had never come.”[30] Present-day members of the 201st Field Artillery are doubtless equally proud of both of these descriptions of their comrades from an earlier era.

During 1774 as tensions increased between Great Britain and the colonists in the Boston area, the new royal governor, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Gage, dismissed the commander of the Cadets, Lieutenant Colonel John Hancock, for his role in leading the revolt against British import duties, whereupon the Cadets voted to disband and returned their colors to the governor.

In 1786 the Cadets were mobilized to serve in the militia that suppressed Shays’ Rebellion, an armed uprising by farmers in western Massachusetts protesting high taxes and courts’ judgments against debtors.

The war ended with the decisive defeat of a force composed largely of Shawnees and Mingos at the Battle of Point Pleasant, near the juncture of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers.

[40] Revolutionary War Campaigns: Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown The 111th Infantry traces its origins to the Associators, founded on November 21, 1747, at Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin.

[42] Revolutionary War Campaigns: Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, New Jersey 1777 Like the 111th Infantry, the 103rd Engineer Battalion traces its origins to the Associators, constituted on November 21, 1747, at Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin.

[47] Major General (retired) Donald Burdick, who was Director of the Army National Guard from 1986 to 1991, served as commander of the 118th Field Artillery Brigade from 1981 to 1983.

The event that caused the Center for Military History to reject such an interpretation was the comprehensive reorganization of the island’s militia implemented by Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly in 1765.

After being sent to Puerto Rico by the Spanish King to prepare a comprehensive report on the defenses of San Juan, O'Reilly produced a "General Program of Military Reform", which included plans for both improving the island's fortifications and for revamping the local militias.

[54] Revolutionary War Campaigns: Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown The 104th Cavalry traces its lineage back only as far as 1874 when the 8th Infantry Regiment was constituted on June 30, 1874, and organized in south-central Pennsylvania on August 4, 1874.

[56] The first notable action of the Associators of the Light Horse during the Revolutionary War was to escort General Washington from Philadelphia to Kingsbridge, New York, on his way to take command of the Continental Army outside of Boston in 1775.

The black Maltese cross represents service in Puerto Rico, while the red keystone is the insignia of the 28th Infantry Division, in which elements of the regiment have served.

In 1782 the Wyoming Valley was awarded to Pennsylvania, rekindling the animosity, and triggered some fighting (the Second Yankee-Pennamite War) between the pro-Connecticut and pro-Pennsylvania factions.

[70] The gear wheel in the Distinctive Unit Insignia indicates the maintenance function of TASMG, while the cloud is symbolic of the sky and aviation.

However, Battery C, 1st Battalion, 197 Field Artillery, can trace its origin all the way back to Captain Waldron’s Minute Company, 2nd New Hampshire Regiment, which was organized on July 3, 1775.

[87] Hamilton's Battery played a particularly significant role in the Long Island campaign, when it covered the successful withdrawal of Washington’s army across the East River to Brooklyn Heights.

Hamilton’s Battery was also in the force that crossed the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776 to launch a surprise attack on British forces near Trenton, an action that resulted in the capture of an entire regiment of Hessians and gave the Americans their first significant victory in the war following a series of defeats in the Battles of Brooklyn, Kips Bay, White Plains, Fort Washington and Fort Lee, broken only by the victory at Harlem Heights, and during the discouraging retreat across New Jersey.

The Revolutionary War had hardly ended before a strong sentiment grew against the maintenance of a permanent professional peacetime army, and in 1784 Congress instructed President Washington to “discharge the troops now in the service of the United States, except twenty-five privates to guard the stores at Fort Pitt and fifty-five to guard the stores at West Point and other magazines.” The fifty-five artillerists at West Point were the remnants of Captain Doughty’s Company and were still commanded by Brevet Major Doughty, so until the First American Regiment was organized in 1785, Doughty’s Company of Artillery was the only officially constituted and organized formation in the United States Army.

were consolidated with another battery and redesignated as Captain Mahlon Ford’s Company of Artillery of the 1st Sublegion, Legion of the United States, and placed under the command of Brigadier General Anthony Wayne.

[102] Revolutionary War Campaigns: Streamer without inscription The 150th Cavalry traces its origins to the Militia of Greenbrier County, Virginia, constituted on March 1, 1778.