Virginia 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.

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

Finally, Washington offered command of an additional regiment to Charles Mynn Thruston of Virginia, who accepted.

Still other Continental infantry regiments and smaller units, also unrelated to a state quota, were raised as needed for special or temporary service.

On September 16, 1776, the Continental Congress resolved to raise an army of eighty-eight infantry regiments which were to serve for the duration of the war.

The responsibility for raising these units did not rest with the states, but with the Continental Congress which gave George Washington almost complete control over them.

In September 1778 the Virginia Line was in the vicinity of White Plains, New York, after serving at the Battle of Monmouth.

The first two Detachments of the Virginia Line served at the Siege of Charleston in South Carolina and were surrendered to the British Army on 12 May 1780.

The 3rd Detachment was cut to pieces at the Battle of Waxhaws; the Virginia line had effectively ceased to exist.

The single exception was the two-company 9th Virginia Regiment of 1779, which was stationed at Fort Pitt (the present Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).