the defense of frontier settlements of present-day western Pennsylvania and vicinity from Indian raids that had started in early 1777. In mid-1778, after more than a year of these attacks, largely by warriors of British-allied Iroquois tribes and Loyalist forces, Washington commenced a concerted effort to neutralize the threat to the backcountry settlements of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—the war's western front. In support of the reorganization process, on February 16, 1779, Washington ordered that all the regiment's detached members in the Main Army be reincorporated into the unit. Pursuant to Washington's order, the enlisted men in Smith's composite company who were attached to the 4th Maryland Regiment rejoined Rawlings' command. In contrast, the Virginians of Long's composite company already had been all but formally incorporated into the 11th Virginia Regiment by order of the Virginia state government in February 1777. (Because Long's unit was a component of an Extra Continental regiment and therefore had no administrative connection to an individual state, the Virginia state government had exceeded its authority in this action, which was technically only within the purview of Congress. Washington tacitly accepted the arrangement, but the process was probably not formalized until the reorganization and redesignation of the 11th Virginia Regiment as the 7th Virginia Regiment on May 12, 1779.) Moreover, the enlisted men of Smith's and Long's companies who were still attached to the Provisional Rifle Corps, which was not part of the Main Army at this time, remained in that unit until mid-1779, at which time they left the service because their three-year enlistment periods had expired. Rawlings' force therefore now consisted of almost all Marylanders and was variously identified as the "Maryland Corps," "Maryland Rifle Corps," and "Maryland Independent Corps" during its service on the western frontier. The unit, however, remained outside the state line organization, a source of great frustration for its officers. Because no unit-redesignation orders accompanied the reorganization orders, the unit's formal name remained the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment despite significant variations from the unit's original 1776 configuration. Fort Pitt and the Western Department After recruitment of the three companies had been no more than partially completed, Rawlings' regiment set off for Fort Pitt, arriving there in late May 1779. The three companies consisted of about 100 enlisted men, well below the prescribed total of about 60 enlisted men per company in a Continental Army line infantry regiment in 1779.