Massachusetts Line

Officers of the Continental Army below the rank of brigadier general were ordinarily ineligible for promotion except in the line of their own state.

[1] The size of the Massachusetts Line varied from as many as 27 active regiments (at the outset of the war) to four (at its end).

For most of the war after the siege of Boston (April 1775 to March 1776) almost all of these units were deployed outside Massachusetts, serving as far north as Quebec City, as far west as present-day central Upstate New York, and as far south as Yorktown, Virginia.

Massachusetts line troops were involved in most of the war's major battles north of Chesapeake Bay, and were present at the decisive siege of Yorktown in 1781.

These units were generally referred to by the names of their colonels, and were numbered one way by the state and another by the Continental Army.

After two major reorganizations (at the start of 1781 and 1783) the army was almost completely disbanded in November 1783, leaving a single regiment under the command of Massachusetts Colonel Henry Jackson.

These "dictatorial powers" included the authority to raise sixteen additional Continental infantry regiments at large.

[2] Early in 1777, Washington offered command of one of these additional regiments to David Henley of Massachusetts, who accepted.

[3] Washington also offered command of an additional regiment to William Raymond Lee of Massachusetts, who accepted.

[4] Finally, Washington offered command of an additional regiment to Henry Jackson of Massachusetts, who accepted.

[12] George Washington was selected as commander in chief of this force, and all other Continental Army troops, the following day.

[62] The quota of regiments assigned to the states was 1 from Pennsylvania, 3 from New Hampshire, 16 from Massachusetts, 2 from Rhode Island, and 5 from Connecticut.

Finally, the 7th Continental Regiment, which served in Parsons' Brigade, was assigned to the Highlands Department in November.

[66] The remnants of the regiments of Asa Whitcomb, James Frye, Ebenezer Bridge, Ephraim Doolittle, and Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge were disbanded at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 31, 1775.

The remnant of the 12th Continental Regiment, under Colonel Moses Little, was disbanded at Morristown, New Jersey in February 1777.

[76] The remnant of the 13th Continental Regiment, under Colonel Joseph Read, was disbanded at Morristown, New Jersey, in January 1777.

[79] The remnant of the 14th Continental Regiment, under Colonel John Glover, was disbanded in eastern Pennsylvania on December 31, 1776.

[118] Because the Continental Congress passed this resolve at the beginning of the campaigning season, it was nearly a year before this reorganization was completed.

The prolonged period of peace negotiations following the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, on October 19, 1781, presented the Continental Congress with the dilemma of keeping up a military force until the definitive peace treaty was signed, even though the national finances were exhausted.

[126] The Continental Congress received the text of the preliminary peace treaty on March 13, 1783,[125] and proclaimed the cessation of hostilities on April 11, 1783.

The Main Army, with the exception of a small observation force in the Hudson Highlands under the command of General Henry Knox, was disbanded on November 3, 1783.

[130] After this date no part of the Massachusetts Line remained in the field, although the four furloughed regiments were still not formally disbanded.

[131] The British fleet left New York City on December 4, 1783, and on the same day Washington bid farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern.