15th Continental Regiment

15th Continental Regiment

The 1st Massachusetts Regiment was an infantry unit of the Continental Army that fought during the American Revolutionary War. It was first authorized on 23 April 1775 in the Massachusetts State Troops as Paterson's Regiment under Colonel John Paterson and was organized at Cambridge, Massachusetts. It consisted of eleven companies of volunteers from Berkshire, Hampshire, Suffolk, Middlesex, Worcester, and York counties in Massachusetts and the county of Litchfield in the colony of Connecticut. The regiment was adopted into the main Continental Army on 14 June 1775 and was assigned to William Heath's brigade on 22 July 1775. On 1 January 1776 the regiment (less two companies) was consolidated with Sayer's and Sullivan's companies of Scammon's Regiment; re-organized to eight companies and redesignated as the 15th Continental Regiment of Heath's Brigade.

The regiment would see action at the Battle of Bunker Hill. When the army was reorganized at the end of 1775 the regiment was designated the 15th Continental Regiment, and in 1777 it was designated the 1st Massachusetts Regiment (but was also referred to as Vose's Regiment after its colonel, Joseph Vose).