page_title: Army National Guard and Active Regular Army Units with Colonial Roots
section_title: 181st Infantry, MA ARNG (Sixth Massachusetts)
hierarchical_section_title: Army National Guard and Active Regular Army Units with Colonial Roots / 181st Infantry, MA ARNG (Sixth Massachusetts)
caption_attribution_description: English: Distinctive Unit Insignia of the 181st Infantry (ARNG MA)
context_page_description: Thirty federally recognized units in the U.S. Army have lineages that go back to the colonial era. Twenty-nine are National Guard units; one is a Regular Army Field Artillery battalion. Of the twenty-nine National Guard units, twenty-eight trace their origins to units initially organized in the English colonies; one is derived from militias formed on Puerto Rico when that island was still under Spanish rule.
  The units from the English colonies were formed during three distinct periods. The first eight, formed between 1636 and 1672, were formed for frontier defense shortly after settlements were established in New England and Virginia. The next eight, formed between 1735 and 1756, were raised for a variety of functions, including frontier defense, expansion into new areas further inland from the original settlements, and for actions against native tribes allied with the French, who were challenging the British for the control of North America. The last group of twelve, formed between 1774 and 1778, were raised for their immediate use in the Revolutionary War.
  The units are listed chronologically from oldest to newest.
context_section_description: Revolutionary War Campaigns: Lexington, Boston, Quebec, Long Island, Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga, Monmouth, New Jersey 1776, New York 1776, New York 1780, and Rhode Island 1778.
  The 181st and 182nd Infantry Regiments both trace their origins to the North Regiment, organized on December 13, 1636, from militia units at Charlestown, New Town, Watertown, Dedham, and Concord.  In 1643 the North Regiment was redesignated as the Middlesex Regiment.
  The first major military action of the Middlesex Regiment was in King Philip’s War (1675–1676), a conflict that had profound effects on the colonization of New England and the fate of the Native people there.  King Philip, a Wampanoag chief whose Indian name was Metacom, organized a confederation of tribes to resist the expansion of white settlements in southern New England.  King Philip was the son of Massasoit, the chief who had been the architect of the initial collaborative relationship between the colonists and the Indians.  The war ended that relationship and replaced it with one in which the colonists were dominant and the Native people were marginalized.  The conflict was precipitated when Wampanoag braves killed several cattle owned by a colonist, who retaliated by killing an Indian.  The Indians then responded by attacking Swansea, Massachusetts, after which the conflict rapidly degenerated into a brutal cycle of raids, massacres and reprisals in an area that stretched from the Mount Hope peninsula in Rhode Island to central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
  Personnel from the Middlesex Regiment participated in the Great Swamp Fight on December 19, 1675.  This campaign, involving approximately a thousand militiamen from the Connecticut, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies, was a pre-emptive strike on the fortified winter encampment of the Narragansetts, who had remained neutral in the conflict up to that time but whom the colonists feared might join forces with King Philip.  Between five and six hundred Indians were killed in the attack.  The surviving Narragansetts then joined King Philip and began attacking and burning settlements in southeastern New England.  The war ended in 1676 when King Philip was hunted down and killed near Swansea, his body drawn and quartered, and his head displayed on a pole in Plymouth.  The conflict took the lives of eight percent of the male population of the Plymouth Colony and resulted in the near annihilation of several Indian tribes.
  The colonial predecessor of the 772d Military Police Battalion and 102nd Infantry (see below) also participated in King Philip's War.
  The Middlesex Regiment was expanded in 1680 and divided into two regiments: the Lower (or 1st) and Upper (or 2nd) Middlesex Regiments.  The 181st Infantry traces its lineage back to the 2nd Middlesex Regiment; the 182d Infantry, to the 1st Middlesex Regiment.
  While remaining in state service during the Revolutionary War, the 2nd Middlesex Regiment was expanded on February 19, 1776, to form the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Middlesex Regiments.  On April 23, 1775, these regiments were reorganized to produce five regiments in the new Continental Army: Prescott's, Thomas's, Nixon's, Brewer's, and Bridge's Regiments. Bridge's Regiment was disbanded later in the year.
  Prescott's Regiment became the 7th Continental Regiment on January 1, 1776.  On January 1, 1776, the 7th Continental Regiment was consolidated with the 23rd Continental Regiment (see Thomas's Regiment below) to form the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment.  Prescott's Regiment played a prominent role at the Battle of Bunker Hill and the evacuation of Long Island.
  Thomas's Regiment was redesignated as Bailey's Regiment on July 1, 1775, then consolidated with Cotton's Regiment (authorized April 23, 1775) on January 1, 1776, to form the 23rd Continental Regiment, following which the 23rd and 7th Continental Regiments were consolidated to form the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment.
  Nixon's Regiment became the 4th Continental Regiment on January 1, 1776, and then the 6th Massachusetts Regiment in 1779.  Nixon's Regiment was in ac
caption: Distinctive Unit Insignia: 181st Inf
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