1st Connecticut Regiment (1775)

1st Connecticut Regiment (1775)
Active	1775-1776
Allegiance	Continental Congress of the United States
Type	Infantry
Size	1000
Engagements	Siege of Boston, Invasion of Canada and the Battle of Trois-Rivières.
Commanders
Notable commanders	Major General David Wooster

The 1st Connecticut Regiment (1775) was raised on 27 April 1775 at Norwich, Connecticut in the Connecticut State Troops. The regiment consisted of ten companies of volunteers from New Haven and Litchfield counties of the state of Connecticut.

Recruitment areas

It was adopted into the Main Continental Army on 14 June 1775 and then was assigned 24 June 1775 to the New York (Northern) Department. Two companies (Captain Bradford Steel's and Captain Caleb Trowbridge's) were detached 13 July 1775 and reassigned to the Main Continental Army and participated in the siege of Boston. The two companies were disbanded on 20 December 1775 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The regiment was reassigned to the Canadian Department and was disbanded between 1 December 1775 and 15 April 1776 in Canada. The regiment would see action in the Invasion of Canada and the Battle of Trois-Rivières.

According to the national archives, enclosed below is a letter from the 1st Connecticut Regiment to General Washington dated March 31st, 1778. In this letter, the regiment is requesting the appointment of a colonel to their regiment and requesting specifically that the colonel assigned be Colonel Sherman.

Note: Colonel Sherman was not assigned to the 1st Connecticut Regiment in 1778. The post was appointed to Lt. Colonel Josiah Starr.

Below is the letter and footnotes from the national archives:

From Officers of the 1st Connecticut Regiment

31 March 1778

Camp, Valley Forge 31st March, 1778

To His Excellency Geo. Washington Esq.; General and Commander in Chief of the Armies of the United States of America: The Petition of the commissioned Officers of the first Connecticut Regiment, Humbly Sheweth, That Your Petitioners, since they took the field the last Campaign to the present time, have been destitute of a chief Colonel to the Regimt—Our Lieut: Colonel, daily expecting some other gentleman would be put over him to command the Regiment, did not exert himself for the honor & benefit of the same, as he probably would have done had his situation been otherwise. The necessary inconveniences then, we have laboured under on this account, are too obvious to be particularis’d to Your Excellency: To avoid which, in future, and that the regiment may make that respectable & martial appearance which was intended by the first worthy Colonel of it;1 Your Petitioners humbly beg leave to request of your Excellency that a Colonel be appointed to the said regiment before the opening of the approaching campaign. And Your Petitioners further beg leave to petition your Excellency, that we may be indulged in having Lieut. Colonel Sherman; (whose accomplishments as an Officer, & a Gentleman, we highly vallue,) appointed to the command of said regiment,2 which we humbly concieve would greatly add to the peace & honour of the Same; and Your Petitioners, as in duty bound shall ever pray. Signed in behalf of the comission’d Officers of the afforsd Regiment.

Christor Darrow Capt: Com’dt

1. The petitioners are referring to Jedediah Huntington, who had been promoted to brigadier general in May 1777. Since then the 1st Connecticut Regiment had been commanded by Lt. Col. Samuel Prentice, who resigned in May 1778 after being passed over for the colonelcy of the 6th Connecticut Regiment (see Prentice to GW, 15 May, DNA: RG 93, War Department). The petitioners had previously spoken to Huntington about their opposition to an appointment of Prentice (see Jedediah Huntington to Jabez Huntington, 22 Feb., Huntington Papers, 401–2).

2. Lt. Col. Isaac Sherman did not get this appointment, which went instead to Lt. Col. Josiah Starr, whose commission as colonel evidently was backdated to May 1777.

Major General David Wooster

Born in Derby, Connecticut on March 2, 1710, General David Wooster was a Yale graduate and took part in several early conflicts including the Spanish War, the Seven Years War, and the Revolutionary War. On June 22, 1775 General Wooster was one of the eight Brigadier-Generals appointed commander of the Connecticut Regiment. Of the eight generals, he was third in rank. General Wooster spent most of 1775 in the Boston area. He later took part in the Canada expedition while under the command of General Montgomery.

See also

• 1st Connecticut Regiment

References

• Wright, Richard K. (1983). The Continental Army. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 60-4. Retrieved 4 June 2006. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month=, |chapterurl=, and |coauthors= (help)
• “To George Washington from Officers of the 1st Connecticut Regiment, 31 March 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-14-02-0346. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 14, 1 March 1778 – 30 April 1778, ed. David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004, p. 371.]

External links

• Bibliography of Connecticut's participation in the Continental Army compiled by the United States Army Center of Military History
• "Decoding Connecticut Militia 1739-1783" by John K. Robertson (Journal of the American Revolution, July 2016)