In 1779 three provisional regiments from Virginia were raised as reinforcements for the Southern Department.

Fuller raised a provisional regiment for the war with Spain and was commissioned colonel of the Thirteenth Illinois Infantry by Governor John Riley Tanner.

The provisional regiment was formed from individual battalions of the 36th, 51st, and 55th Line.

This provisional regiment was sent to the Army of the Potomac as part of the IX Corps.

In 1906 Arkansas sent one provisional regiment to Fort Riley, Kansas for training.

In 1908 a provisional regiment trained at Leon Springs, Texas.

The new provisional regiments were paid by the state, but were outfitted and supplied by the Federal government.

Reactivated April 1927 at Norfolk, Virginia as the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment and assigned to the provisional regiment.

In its first iteration in 1912, the brigade had only 1,200 men in two provisional regiments.

Another provisional regiment, tentatively designated as the 3d, was formed on 21 April 1914 from Marine detachments of the ships that had converged on Vera Cruz.