Virginia Regiment

Under orders from General Edward Braddock, the unit was re-organized into two carpenter companies, six ranger companies, and one troop of mounted rangers, fighting at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755. The Virginia Regiment was subsequently expanded into two regiments for the 1758 Forbes Expedition. As a result of the outbreak of the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1762, the unit remained on the Virginia frontier for longer than expected, but was disbanded by Governor Francis Fauquier in 1762. Although Washington resigned from the regiment in 1758, upset over not being made an officer in the British Army, the experience he gained in the conflict greatly helped him during the American Revolutionary War.

History

The Anglo-French conflict over the Ohio Country led to raising of the first provincial regiment in the British colony of Virginia. In 1754, the Virginia General Assembly voted to raise a regiment of 300 men and send it to the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers. After the battle of Fort Necessity, the General Assembly voted to increase the size of the regiment from five companies to ten. The Virginian provincial troops who participated in the Braddock Expedition of 1755 and suffered defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela were unregimented: at the behest of General Edward Braddock, they had been organized into two companies of carpenters, six companies of rangers, and one troop of mounted rangers, about 450 men in all. The remaining 350 men from the original ten companies of the Virginia Regiment had been allocated to the two regular regiments of the expedition.

After the defeat of the expedition, the Virginia Regiment was immediately reformed, with the General Assembly voting in 1755 to increase its size again, to 1,500 men organized in 16 companies. The actual strength of the Regiment in 1756 was 1,400 men, but in 1757 it was reduced to 1,000 men. In 1758, Virginia raised two additional regiments of a thousand men each for the Forbes Expedition. The enlistment period for the first regiment expired in May 1759, and for the second in December 1758. After the fall of Fort Duquesne, the General Assembly voted in 1759 to fill the one regiment still in service, and to raise a force of another 500 men that would remain in the province for its immediate defense. The regiment would remain in service until May 1760.

With the outbreak of the Anglo-Cherokee War, the General Assembly prolonged the Regiment's service, adding 300 men in three companies as frontier guards. It remained on the Cherokee frontier until early 1762, when Governor Francis Fauquier disbanded it. When, later in 1762, the British government indicated its wish for Virginia to raise a regiment which would be put on the British establishment, the General Assembly instead voted to re-raise the Virginia Regiment. This re-raised Regiment was finally disbanded in May 1763, just before the outbreak of Pontiac's War, as the province could not maintain it without a supply of paper money, which the Board of Trade had disallowed.