U.S. Marines in Battle: Fort Fisher. December 1864-January 1865.

摘要

In the long and storied history of the Marine Corps, its contributions to the Union effort during the Civil War have often been relegated to a mere footnote. An aged officer corps on the defensive against both attacks in Congress and the whims of senior naval authorities, chronic manpower shortages, and its traditional duties all contributed to limiting the Corps role. Bad luck and the bookend humiliations at Bull Run in 1861 (also known in the South as First Manassas) and at Fort Fisher in 1865 on the North Carolina coast not only overshadowed the service of Marine battalions but also many instances of individual courage. The Fort Fisher campaign, which spanned from December 1864 to January 1865, consisted of two separate battles in which Marines from both sides took part. The engagements marked the final large-scale amphibious operations of the war. While today many would naturally associate Marines and amphibious warfare, the Civil War was a time of ill-defined roles in which the U.S. Army took the lead in joint operations with the U.S. Navy.