It was a force of marines who captured John Brown at Harper's Ferry, in 1859. While the militia of Virginia was assembling by the thousand to attack the little band of abolitionists, a force of one hundred marines was sent from Washington, and a squad of eight of them battered down the door of John Brown's fort, and captured his party, to the chagrin of the hundreds of other military men near by who hoped to have a hand in the affair.
Again and again during the Civil War the marines proved themselves brave and stubborn fighters. In the encounter between the Merrimac and the Cumberland, the marine division was under Lieutenant Charles Heywood, later commander of the corps. The first shot from the Merrimac killed nine marines, yet the division was so little demoralized by the loss that it not only continued fighting, but actually fired the last shot discharged from the Cumberland at the Merrimac. For services rendered between 1861 and 1865, thirty-seven officers and men of the Marine Corps received the thanks of Congress, medals or swords, and twenty-eight were brevetted for gallantry.
In the brush with Corea in 1871, the marines, as before stated, were in the assault on the Salee forts, and Lieutenant McKee, in carrying the works, fell, as his father fell in Mexico, at the head of his men, and first inside the stormed works.
Commander, afterward Admiral, Kimberly stated in his report that to the marines belonged the honor of "first landing and last leaving the shore. Chosen as the advance guard on account of their steadiness and discipline, their whole behavior on the march and in the assault proved that the confidence in them had not been misplaced."
The marines again distinguished themselves in 1885, when an insurrection in Panama compelled the landing there of a force, which stayed until all danger was over, and several times, in more recent years, the officers and men of the corps have plucked a fresh branch for their laurels. When the big railroad strike in California was in progress in the summer of 1894 the marine guard stationed at the Mare Island Navy Yard was called out to serve with the regular troops at Sacramento, Truckee, Stockton and other towns. In alertness, activity and general soldierliness they showed themselves quite the equals of the army troops, and the colonel of artillery who commanded the entire brigade, did not fail to dwell upon this fact in his report to the War Department. One of the marines at Truckee bent the stock of his rifle in clubbing a violent rioter, who afterward was convicted as an accessory in ditching a train and causing the deaths of four soldiers. The marine was reproved by his company commander, and narrowly escaped a court-martial, on the charge of destroying government property. "Bullets," said the commander, "are cheaper than rifles."
The American marine has never been known to show the white feather, no matter what the odds against him. When, some years ago, Antonio Ezeta, the Central American agitator, was being chased by the government authorities of the Republic of Salvador, he took refuge in the residence of the American consul at La Libertad. The populace raged around the consulate, and word was sent to the garrison on the outskirts of La Libertad of Ezeta's hiding-place. An American gunboat was lying in the harbor, and the marine guard of twenty men, under command of a sergeant, was sent ashore by the commanding officer at the request of the consul, to protect the latter's residence and the refugee within it, for Ezeta was a citizen of the United States. The marine guard reached the consulate at the same moment with a battalion of 250 Salvadorean soldiers. The marines, not a whit dismayed, surrounded the consulate, and for eight hours stood off the swarthy Salvadoreans. Then, by a ruse, Ezeta, in disguise, was slipped to the beach and taken to the warship, which carried him to San Francisco to stand trial in the United States courts for violation of the neutrality laws. He would have been torn limb from limb by the citizens and soldiers of La Libertad, had it not been for the score of marines. The captain of one of the Salvadorean companies was an American free-lance from Western New York. He raved over the cowardice of the dark skinned soldiers he commanded, and profanely declared that, with half a dozen marines of the United States at his back, he would undertake to whip the entire Salvadorean army. His men, it may be stated in passing, did not understand English.
Finally, in the war with Spain and the more recent operations in China, the Marine Corps added another moving and glorious chapter to its history. At Guantanamo the marine battalion, commanded by Colonel R. W. Huntingdon, fought the first serious land engagement of United States forces on foreign soil since the Mexican War. The fact that this battalion was attacked by the enemy in overwhelming numbers, and for over three days and nights was under constant fire, and that on the fourth day a portion of the battalion attacked and repulsed a superior force of Spaniards, shows, to quote the words of their chief, "that Colonel Huntingdon and his officers and men displayed great gallantry, and that all were well drilled and under the most effective discipline." One of the men under Huntingdon's command was Sergeant Thomas Quick, a lithe and fearless native of the mountains of West Virginia. At a critical stage of the operations, while the marines were engaged with the enemy firing from ambush, it became necessary to dislodge them, and it was desired that the Dolphin should shell the woods in which they were concealed. Quick volunteered to signal her, and standing on a hill wigwagged her, while bullets backed the dust about him. For his action, described as "beautiful" by his commander, he, in due time, received a medal of honor and a lieutenant's commission.
The headquarters of the Marine Corps are at the barracks in the City of Washington, where are located the commandant and his staff. Besides those previously mentioned, there are marine barracks at Portsmouth, Boston, League Island, Norfolk and Annapolis. But the fouled anchor running through a hemisphere traced with the outlines of the two American continents, which adorns the front of the marine's fatigue cap, tells that he is at home both on sea and land, and when on either, shrewd, sharp blows are to be struck he is ready for them. Nowhere in the world, size taken into account, is there a more efficient organization than this corps of 6,000 brave fighting men.