New Jersey Line

NEW JERSEY LINE. New Jersey was one of the states which raised its line in response to a request from the Continental Congress. On 9 October 1775 the Congress asked for two regiments, which the New Jersey Provincial Congress agreed to organize on the 26th of that month. These were the First New Jersey Regiment, raised in East Jersey (the northeastern part of the colony), and the Second, raised in West Jersey. On 8 January 1776 Congress directed the Second Regiment to move as soon as possible to support the invasion of Canada, and two days later approved raising a third regiment. During February the First Regiment started deploying to New York City, and the Third followed as soon as it was formed. Both later moved up to the Northern Department. In 1777 the Congress increased the state's quota to four regiments by reenlisting the three existing ones and forming one more. Declining manpower led to the disbanding of the Fourth New Jersey Regiment on 7 February 1779, incorporating its members into the remaining three to bring them up to strength. In 1781 the quota again dropped, calling for two regiments that were formed using the same process. Finally, on 1 March 1783, the First Regiment became the New Jersey Regiment, and the Second Regiment shrank to become the four-company New Jersey Battalion. Both units were furloughed on 6 June of that year and were formally disbanded on 15 November 1783. One other infantry regiment was recruited primarily in New Jersey in 1777. This was Spencer's Additional Continental Regiment, which was often called the Fifth New Jersey Regiment, particularly after absorbing New Jersey men from Forman's and Malcolm's Additional Regiments in 1779), but it was never part of the New Jersey Line. The state also furnished several artillery companies and a company of light dragoons to the Continental army.

SEE ALSO Spencer's Regiment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gerlach, Larry R., ed. New Jersey in the American Revolution, 1763–1783: A Documentary History. Trenton, N.J.: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975.

Gilman, Charles Malcom B. The Story of the Jersey Blues. Red Bank, N.J.: Arlington Laboratory for Clinical and Historical Research, 1962.

Leiby, Adrian C. The Revolutionary War in the Hackensack Valley: The Jersey Dutch and the Neutral Ground. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1962.

Lender, Mark Edward. The New Jersey Soldier. Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1975.

Stryker, William S. General Maxwell's Brigade of the New Jersey Continental Line in the Expedition Against the Indians, in the Year 1779. Trenton, N.J.: W. S. Sharp Printing Co., 1885.

――――――, comp. Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War, Compiled under Orders of His Excellency Theodore F. Randolph, Governor, by William S. Stryker, Adjutant General. 1872; Repr. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1967.