Marines Corps of 1805 had fewer than 500

By Ned Harrison
Special to The Roanoke Times



Courtesy of Ned Harrison

U.S. Marines during the Civil War and more here and here and here

Time to catch up on some mail and e-mails. In an earlier column, I discussed the U.S. Marines and their activities during the early years of our existence as a nation. I wrote that the Marines were active "at Tripoli in the War of 1812."

Richard Raymond of Roanoke e-mailed that he "usually finds [the column] entertaining and factual, but this time you slipped. The Marines did not storm the 'Shores of Tripoli' in the War of 1812, but the war against the Barbary pirates in 1805. You will probably get a ton of mail/e-mail from indignant former Marines, correcting you."

Right you are, Richard Raymond: Fred Hallet of Annapolis, Md., e-mailed that he is a retired naval officer but his "youngest son is a Marine and we've long been admirers of the Marine tradition." Hallet added, "I think you got it wrong with your sentence which began, 'Marines were active at Tripoli in the War of 1812,' " and he wrote that he would like added information about Marines in the War of 1812.

Peter McDermott of Arnold, Md., chided me for not mentioning "the role of the Marine Battalion attached to the US Army during the Battle at Bull Run (First Manassas)."

I admit that I erred in three wars; here is the straight scoop. In 1805, the U.S. Marine Corps consisted of 26 officers and 453 enlisted men. In 1812, the Marine Corps included 10 officers and 483 enlisted men. At this point in our history, American ships were being captured by pirates along the Barbary Coast of North Africa and the crews were forced into slavery.

Significant to the issue: In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were sent to London to negotiate relief from piracy with Tripoli's envoy to London. When asked why the pirates made war on nations that had done Tripoli no injury, the envoy replied: "It is written in their Koran that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it is the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise."

The usual practice was for foreign nations to pay tribute to the pirates to keep them from plundering commercial vessels, but by 1794, six frigates had been authorized by the Congress and this led to two Barbary wars along the North African Coast. The first war, 1801-05, did not solve the problem, but in 1815, there was a second war along the North African Coast and that ended American tribute payments to the local pirates and the seizure of American vessels.

A small body of Marines led an army of locals who captured the Tripoli fortress of Derna in late April 1805; and thus the line in the Marine Corps Hymn, "to the shores of Tripoli." Another tidbit of information from the Barbary wars: Marines are called leathernecks because of the danger incurred during boarding operations against hostile ships. Marine uniforms of the day had high leather collars to protect their necks from saber slashes.

The Marine Corps in the Civil War remained a small and tightly knit organization. The Confederate states started their own Marine Corps with an authorized enlistment of 46 officers and 944 enlisted men. However, the South never came close to achieving those numbers.

The U.S. Marine Corps was by the start of the Civil War a veteran combat organization, and in 1861 had an authorized strength of 93 officers and 3,074 enlisted men. When the war ended, the Corps was at full strength and had sustained 148 killed in action and 312 who had "died of other causes."

Marines were active even before the start of the Civil War. In October 1859, an 86-man Marine detachment led by U.S. Army Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee captured John Brown at Harper's Ferry in what was then part of Virginia.

At the First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, a 365-man battalion of Marines was led by Brevet Maj. John Reynolds, a veteran of the Mexican War. His battalion included 320 privates, none of whom had been in service for more than three weeks. He also had in his command 12 officers, 17 noncommissioned officers, two drummers and two fifers.

The inexperienced men fought as well as the other inexperienced men in the Union Army. The battalion sustained nine killed, 19 wounded and six missing in action.

Other Marine actions during the Civil War included authorized attacks on coastal forts; the Corps was always careful not to exceed its authorized actions. On April 26, 1863, 250 Marines seized the New Orleans city hall and customs house.

On Jan. 15, 1865, a 10,000-man force including 365 Marines attacked Fort Fisher, at Wilmington, N.C.

By April 9, 1865, research shows, a detachment of Marines was active in forcing the collapse of Confederate defenses and the surrender of Lee, who had by then attained the rank of general. However, I find no information about these Marine units; if any reader has more information about Marine presence for the surrender I would certainly appreciate the details.

Bill Hurlebaus of Marion, sent an e-mail about the election of 1864, and in answer to his question about the election, I wrote that President Abraham Lincoln had trounced the Democratic nominee, Gen. George B. McClellan; I noted that Lincoln had received 55 percent of the popular vote (2.2 million votes) while McClellan received 1.8 million votes. I also noted that Lincoln had won in 22 states with 212 electoral votes. McClellan won in three states with 21 electoral votes.

However, additional research on the matter led me to Shelby Foote's classic "Civil War: A Narrative." He wrote that the election was much closer than the figures showed: "Connecticut ... was carried by a mere 200 votes and New York by fewer than 7,000, both as the result of military ballots, which were overwhelmingly for Lincoln. ... Without these two states plus four others where soldier votes swung the balance -- Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland and Indiana -- he [Lincoln] would have lost the election."

The president was serenaded in his victory by singers and a band on the White House lawn, a tradition in those long-ago days. It was a victory, no doubt about that. But Foote put the win in perspective: even after the war-changing capture of Atlanta, "five percent less than half the voters in the nation had opposed with their ballots [Lincoln's] continuance as their leader." But a win is a win; with Lincoln as president, the war would be prosecuted to its fullest.

Ellie