The Delaware Line was a formation within the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Officers of the Continental Army below the rank of brigadier general were ordinarily ineligible for promotion except in the line of their own state.
These "dictatorial powers" included the authority to raise sixteen additional Continental infantry regiments at large.
Early in 1777, Washington offered command of one of these additional regiments to John Patton of Pennsylvania, who accepted.
[2] Still other Continental infantry regiments and smaller units, also unrelated to a state quota, were raised as needed for special or temporary service.