SMASS-04
John Jenkins Designs
The 2nd Massachusetts Regiment (Bailey's Regiment) was formed by consolidating the remnants of the 7th Continental Regiment; Peters' Company, 13th Continental Regiment; and Clap's Company, 21st Continental Regiment; with the remnant of the 23rd Continental Regiment. (Peters' and Clap's Companies were reorganized, respectively, as Warren's and Dunham's Companies, Bailey's Regiment). The commanding officer, Colonel John Bailey, had been the lieutenant colonel, later the colonel, of Thomas's Regiment in 1775 and colonel of the 23rd Continental Regiment in 1776. As the 23rd Continental Regiment, reorganizing as the 2rd Massachusetts Regiment, it served in Glover's Brigade at Princeton. Reorganization was completed in the spring of 1777, and the regiment was ordered to the Northern Department. In the summer of 1777 it was assigned to the 4th Massachusetts Brigade under Brigadier General Learned. The regiment retreated toward Saratoga after the American evacuation of Fort Ticonderoga in July, and marched under Arnold to the relief of Fort Stanwix in August. Following the Saratoga campaign the regiment marched south to join Washington in the Middle Department. It served in the Philadelphia campaign and wintered at Valley Forge. In 1778 it served in the Monmouth campaign. After November 1778 the regiment was stationed in the Highlands, but in 1781 its light company was assigned to Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Vose's Battalion, Corps of Light Infantry, which served in the Yorktown campaign. The regiment was disbanded at West Point, New York, on November 3, 1783.
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. General officers of the line included Major Generals Artemas Ward, William Heath, and Benjamin Lincoln, and Brigadier Generals John Glover and John Nixon.