J. Earle Bowden
Spouse
Mary Louise Clark Bowden
Children
Steven Earle Bowden

Randall Clark Bowden

Many of us live through life without contributing anything to enrich the area in which we live. That does not hold true with the Honorable Jesse Earle Bowden. As we look around we can see Mr. Bowden's handprints on many things that we enjoy today in greater Pensacola, Northwest Panhandle of Florida.

Mr. Bowden played a major part in establishing the Gulf Islands National Seashore, and the Seville Square Historic District, located in the city of Pensacola. The accomplishments of J. Earle Bowden are many, and he's not done yet.

Mr. Bowden is now Editor Emeritus of the Pensacola News Journal, and he still writes columns (mostly historic) each Saturday for the Editorial/Opinion Page, and draws an editorial cartoon for the Sunday edition. This talented gentleman is the author of a dozen excellent books.

Thanks you Mr. Bowden, Sir.
~NOAH

*****

Jesse Earle Bowden (b. September 12, 1928) is the editor emeritus of the Pensacola News Journal and a local historian and preservationist.

Born in Altha, Florida, Bowden attended Florida State University, where he studied journalism and wrote for the Florida Flambeau newspaper, before joining the U.S. Air Force. He was a military journalist stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho during the Korean War, after which he moved to Pensacola to begin his journalism career at the Pensacola News Journal on September 30, 1953.

Initially a sports writer until 1958, Bowden replaced Marion T. Gaines as editor of the News Journal's editorial page in 1965 and served as editor-in-chief and vice president of the paper from 1966 to 1997. He was also the paper's main political cartoonist for decades, caricaturing local figures in a distinctive hedcut style inspired by William Hogarth and Thomas Nast. Andy Marlette took over as the main cartoonist in 2007, but Bowden remains a columnist and occasional cartoonist for the opinion section. He has taught journalistic writing since 1983 at the University of West Florida, which awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1985.

As editor of the News Journal, Bowden began campaigning in 1965 to establish the Gulf Islands National Seashore, which was authorized on January 8, 1971, and signed into law by President Nixon. For his efforts, Bowden was named an Honorary Park Ranger by the Secretary of the Interior in (date needed). State Road 399 on Santa Rosa Island, which connects eastern Pensacola Beach to Navarre Beach, was named J. Earle Bowden Way in 1998. Much of the road was washed away in Hurricane Ivan.

Along with Pat Dodson and Mary Turner Rule Reed, Bowden helped to establish the Seville Square Historic District in 1963. He was a charter trustee of the Historic Pensacola Preservation Board when it was formed in 1967 and has served as chairman since 1982. He became president of the organization when it was transferred to the University of West Florida and renamed West Florida Historic Preservation, Inc. (WFHPI) in 1991. The Bowden Building, headquarters of WFHPI, is named for him.

He currently lives in the Cordova Park area.

Bibliography
* Florida in the Civil War: 1860 Through Reconstruction, 1961. With Alan Rick and other members of the Civil War Round Table of Pensacola.
* Always the Rivers Flow: Deliberately a Memoir, Essays on West Florida Heritage by a Pensacola Newspaper Editor, 1979.
* Iron Horse in the Pinelands: Building West Florida's Railroad: 1881-1883, 1982. Virginia Parks, editor.
* Pensacola: Florida's First Place City, 1989. Photographs by Gordon Norman Simmons and Sandra L. Johnson.
* When You Reach September: An Editor's West Florida Essays and Other Episodic Echoes, 1990.
* The Write Way: Editor's Guidebook for Students of Writing, 1990.
* Emerald Coast Review Fifth Annual Collection: West Florida Authors and Artists, 1993. Co-editor with Donna Freckmann.
* Gulf Islands: The Sands of All Time, Preserving America's Largest National Seashore, 1994.
* Emerald Coast Review Sixth Collection: West Florida Authors and Artists, 1995. Co-editor with Seldon Pierce.
* Earle Bowden: Drawing From an Editor's Life. More than Forty Three Years of Cartoons, Caricatures and Illustrations, Pensacola News Journal, 1950s-1990s, 1996.

James F. Amos

General, USMC
Commandant of the United States Marine Corps

James F. Amos (born November 12, 1946) is a four-star in the United States Marine Corps and the 35th and current Commandant of the Marine Corps. A naval aviator by trade, Amos commanded the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and 2004. He served as the 31st Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps from July 3, 2008 to October 22, 2010. Amos assumed his current assignment on October 22, 2010.

Biography
After graduating from the University of Idaho in 1970, Amos was designated a Naval Aviator in 1971, and has held a variety of operational and staff assignments since 1972. His operational assignments include tours with VMFA-212, VMFA-235, VMFA-232 and VMFA-122 where he flew the F-4 Phantom II. In 1985 then-Lieutenant Colonel Amos assumed command of Marine Air Base Squadron 24. Transitioning to the F/A-18 Hornet, he assumed command of VMFA-312 and subsequently joined Carrier Air Wing Eight on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). In May 1996, General Amos took command of Marine Aircraft Group 31 in Beaufort, South Carolina. In August 2002, he assumed command of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and deployed with them to Kuwait and Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Amos served as Commanding General of the II Marine Expeditionary Force from July 2004 to July 2006.

Amos's staff assignments include tours with MAG-15 and MAG-31, III Marine Amphibious Force, Training Squadron Seven, The Basic School, and the MAGTF Staff Training Program. Promoted to brigadier general in 1998, he was assigned to NATO as Deputy Commander, Naval Striking Forces, Southern Europe, and as the U.S. Deputy Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Europe, at Naples, Italy. During this tour he commanded NATO's Kosovo Verification Coordination Center, and served as Chief of Staff, U.S. Joint Task Force Noble Anvil during the air campaign over Yugoslavia. Transferred in 2000 to The Pentagon, he was assigned as Assistant Deputy Commandant for Aviation. Reassigned in December 2001, Amos served as the Assistant Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations Department, Headquarters Marine Corps. From August 2006 to July 2008, Amos served as Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration.

Amos became the 31st Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps on July 3, 2008. In June 2010, Amos was recommended for nomination by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to succeed James T. Conway as Commandant, while recommending Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. to fill his role as Assistant Commandant. He was formally nominated by President Barack Obama on July 20, who interviewed him for the job on June 17. He received support from the Senate Armed Services Committee during a confirmation hearing on September 21, and confirmed shortly thereafter. On October 22, 2010, Conway turned the position over to Amos at a ceremony at Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., thus breaking the tradition of the Commandant being an infantry officer.

As Commandant, Amos opposed the repeal of the Defense Department's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals openly serving in the U.S. military.

Amos is a born again Christian.

Barney F. Hajiro
Oldest Medal of Honor recipient dies

Barney F. Hajiro (September 16, 1916 – January 21, 2011) was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.

Biography
Hajiro was born in Hawaii, the second of nine children born to Japanese immigrant parents who had moved from Hiroshima to Maui during World War I. Two of his siblings died in infancy. The family was poor, and Hajiro left school to work, first in the sugarcane fields of Maui and later as a stevedore in Honolulu. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and performed menial labor as part of an engineering battalion.

In March 1943, he volunteered to join the newly-formed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) like himself. The unit was sent to Europe and in May 1944 fought the Germans in Italy, north of Rome. From there the 442nd was redeployed to France, and on October 19, 1944 was fighting near Bruyères and Biffontaine in the eastern part of that country. Over the next ten days, Hajiro, a private in Company I, repeatedly distinguished himself in battle. He exposed himself to enemy fire while assisting an allied attack on October 19, and three days later he and a comrade ambushed an 18-man enemy patrol. On October 29, during the rescue of the so-called "Lost Battalion", which had been by surrounded by German forces in the Vosges Mountains, he single-handedly destroyed two German machine gun emplacements before being wounded. Shot in the shoulder and wrist, Hajiro's left arm was partially paralyzed. He was able to rejoin the 442nd in Monte Carlo, but was barred from further combat duty. He was then sent back to the United States to recover.

For his actions during October 1944, Hajiro received the Army's second-highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross, before being discharged. In 1948, he was awarded the Military Medal by the British government for his part in rescuing the Lost Battalion. A 1990s review of service records for Asian Americans who had received the Distinguished Service Cross during World War II led to Hajiro's award being upgraded to the Medal of Honor. In a ceremony at the White House on June 21, 2000, he was presented with the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton. Twenty-one other Asian Americans also received the medal during the ceremony, all but six of them posthumously. Four years later, in 2004, the French awarded Hajiro the Légion d'honneur.

Following the death of John William Finn on May 27, 2010, Hajiro became the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient. Hajiro died January 21, 2011 in Waipahu, Hawaii.

Medal of Honor citation

Hajiro's official Medal of Honor citation reads:
Private Barney F. Hajiro distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 19, 22, and October 29, 1944, in the vicinity of Bruyeres and Biffontaine, eastern France. Private Hajiro, while acting as a sentry on top of an embankment on October 19, 1944, in the vicinity of Bruyeres, France, rendered assistance to allied troops attacking a house 200 yards away by exposing himself to enemy fire and directing fire at an enemy strong point. He assisted the unit on his right by firing his automatic rifle and killing or wounding two enemy snipers. On October 22, 1944, he and one comrade took up an outpost security position about 50 yards to the right front of their platoon, concealed themselves, and ambushed an 18-man, heavily armed, enemy patrol, killing two, wounding one, and taking the remainder as prisoners. On October 29, 1944, in a wooded area in the vicinity of Biffontaine, France, Private Hajiro initiated an attack up the slope of a hill referred to as "Suicide Hill" by running forward approximately 100 yards under fire. He then advanced ahead of his comrades about 10 yards, drawing fire and spotting camouflaged machine gun nests. He fearlessly met fire with fire and single-handedly destroyed two machine gun nests and killed two enemy snipers. As a result of Private Hajiro's heroic actions, the attack was successful. Private Hajiro's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon him, his unit, and the United States Army.

Eugene Burton Ely
Eugene Burton Ely (October 21, 1879 - October 19, 1911) was an aviation pioneer, credited with the first shipboard aircraft take off and landing.

Background
Ely was born in Williamsburg, Iowa and raised in Davenport, Iowa. He attended and graduated from Iowa State University in 1904. Following graduation, he moved to San Francisco, California, where he was active in the early days of the sales and racing of automobiles.

He married Mabel Hall on August 7, 1907, he was 27 and she was 17 which meant the marriage required her mother's consent. They relocated to Portland, Oregon in early 1910, where he got a job as a salesman, working for E. Henry Wemme. Soon after, Wemme purchased one of Glenn Curtiss' first four-cylinder biplanes and acquired the franchise for the Pacific Northwest. Wemme was unable to fly the Curtiss biplane, but Ely, believing that flying was as easy as driving a car, offered to fly it. He ended up crashing it instead, and feeling responsible, bought the wreck from Wemme. Within a few months he had repaired the aircraft and learned to fly. He flew it extensively in the Portland area, then headed to Winnipeg to participate in an exhibition, moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota in June 1910, where he met Curtiss and started working for him. Ely received Aero Club of America pilot's license #17 on 5 October 1910.

Naval Aviation Firsts
In October, Ely and Curtiss met Captain Washington Chambers, USN, who had been appointed by George von Lengerke Meyer, the Secretary of the Navy, to investigate military uses for aviation within the Navy. This led to two experiments. On November 14, 1910, Ely took off in a Curtiss pusher from a temporary platform erected over the bow of the light cruiser USS Birmingham. The aeroplane plunged downward as soon as it cleared the 83-foot platform runway; and the aircraft wheels dipped into the water before rising. Ely's goggles were covered with spray, and the aviator promptly landed on a beach rather than circling the harbor and landing at the Norfolk Navy Yard as planned. Following this flight, Ely was made a lieutenant in the California National Guard to qualify for a $500 prize offered to the first reservist to make such a flight.

Two months later, on January 18, 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher airplane on a platform on the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay. Ely flew from the Tanforan airfield in San Bruno, California and landed on the Pennsylvania, which was the first successful shipboard landing of an aircraft. This flight was also the first ever using a tailhook system, designed and built by circus performer and aviator Hugh Robinson. Ely told a reporter: "It was easy enough. I think the trick could be successfully turned nine times out of ten."

Ely communicated with the United States Navy requesting employment, but United States naval aviation was not yet organized. Ely continued flying in exhibitions while Captain Chambers promised to "keep him in mind" if Navy flying stations were created. Captain Chambers advised Ely to cut out the sensational features for his safety and the sake of aviation. When asked about retiring, The Des Moines Register quoted Ely as replying: "I guess I will be like the rest of them, keep at it until I am killed."

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the flight, Naval Commander Bob Coolbaugh flew a personally built replica of the Ely Curtiss from the runway at NAS Norfolk on November 12, 2010. The U.S. Navy plans to feature the flying demonstration at Naval anniversary events across America.

Death
On October 19, 1911, while flying at an exhibition in Macon, Georgia, his plane was late pulling out of a dive and crashed. Ely jumped clear of the wrecked aircraft, but his neck was broken, and he died a few minutes later. His body was returned to his birthplace for burial.

In 1933, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross posthumously by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in recognition of his contribution to naval aviation. An exhibit of retired naval aircraft at Naval Air Station Norfolk in Virginia bears Ely's name, and a granite historical marker in Newport News, Virginia, overlooks the waters where Ely made his historic flight in 1910 and recalls his contribution to military aviation, naval in particular.

Newspapers in America
The Publick Occurrences newspaper was published in Boston in 1690. However, all copies were destroyed and the publisher arrested. The first successful newspaper was the Boston News-Letter, published by postmaster John Campbell in 1704.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. -Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

For my part I entertain a high idea of the utility of periodical publications; insomuch as I could heartily desire, copies of ... magazines, as well as common Gazettes, might be spread through every city, town, and village in the United States. I consider such vehicles of knowledge more happily calculated than any other to preserve the liberty, stimulate the industry, and ameliorate the morals of a free and enlightened people.- George Washington, 1788.

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press... -Article One, Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, 1789.

Here is the living disproof of the old adage that nothing is as dead as yesterday's newspaper... This is what really happened, reported by a free press to a free people. It is the raw material of history; it is the story of our own times. -Henry Steel Commager, preface to a history of the New York Times, 1951.

What is "News"?
Some preliminary remarks are in order on the subject of just what "news" is, anyway. We normally think of news as a particular kind of historical reality, which could probably be defined analytically. That is a mystification of the subject. If journalists are experts on anything, it is their audience, and not some other aspect of reality. Viewed "pheomenologically," news is simply what made it into today's paper or news broadcast. There are now 188 countries, 5 billion people, and thousands of things that "happened" yesterday. Only the ones that actually made the paper became news. Tomorrow will have its own news, so the rejected events will never be news. Of course they might be part of later historical reconstructions of our time. One might think, in such a case, that the journalists just blew it - if you really thought that news was of the same nature as history. But news is not about history, really, but about profits, when publishers are thinking clearly, and newspaper publishers were thinking clearly from the very beginning.

Definitions should come from general usage, and this is what we mean by "news" when we are not being confused with such notions as unimportant news or unreported news. There is no such thing as unreported news, because news is not natural. Events are natural but periodical news is a manufactured product. Of course, that is true of "history" too. History is what historians make out of everything left from the past. News is what newswriters squeezed into today's paper. If there is a point to histories, it is ultimately philosophical; the point of newspapers is to be recycled - the first product with planned obsolescence.

Our second preliminary point is that there is no necessity of thinking of news as daily. It used to come along irregularly when people, exercising their own judgment, decided that something they heard was unusually interesting or important, and passed it on. People maintained their normal standards of honor and truth in spreading this news, so everyone knew about how far to trust the information. They were not awed by the institutional stature of giant news corporations. That changed in the seventeenth century, when people got used to the idea that there was an absolutely regular quota of news, which was vouched for by transcendent sources. Daily news then became a steady stream of perceptions, the stream of society's consciousness. One participated in society in a new way.

Third, not all of the content of the many kinds of periodicals published over the years is news, in the accepted sense of important social or political events. This study will be interested in all of it, however, because it all partakes of the same urgency with which we invest politics. There have been many occasions in the history of journalism where opinion has been published as news, where comments have been presented with the authority of facts. Everything becomes strange when it is cut out of reality in the same way as political or commercial reports are, so that our science, religion, ethics, and arts are becoming as curious as our politics. And it bears remembering that this cultural tempo, like our political tempo, is for the convenience of publishers.

Fourth, our most common mistake in thinking about news is to imagine that the most important events are those that get the most publicity. The reverse may be true. Powerful people do not usually like publicity. Celebrities like publicity, and the media have learned that customers will pay as much or more to read about celebrities as about the powerful. Given the accessibility of celebrities, reporters may concentrate on them while the powerful go about their business. So there is a good chance that the news will not cover what historians will later write about our times. The founders of this nation had a seemingly naive faith i9n the power of the "free" press to responsibly inform the nation's citizens of ongoing events, yet the press has never been "free" in the sense that it take money to purchase a press, and only its owner is guaranteed the right to publish with it anything he or she wishes.

Those who hope that the news will keep them informed about the powerful forces in the world should consider that power might be defined as the ability to keep oneself out of the news. And further, an elite can be defined as a group that is able to monopolize a certain class of information, and keep it out of circulation. For even today all important news is transmitted orally, within elites. If important news is what gives one person an advantage over others, then it follows that valuable news is something you have to pay a lot for, one way or another. What is left over becomes the contents of the media.

It is doubtless true that over the centuries media attention has helped the public to monitor and challenge elites. In time, this attention has eroded the power of some of those elites, but only at the point when the press itself became big business, an elite with secrets of its own. What the balance sheet would show of the new distribution of power, and whether the public has a right to feel included in the power structure because of its news consciousness, should get more attention than it has.

The Origins of Newspapers
The history of newspapers is an often-dramatic chapter of the human experience going back some five centuries. In Renaissance Europe handwritten newsletters circulated privately among merchants, passing along information about everything from wars and economic conditions to social customs and "human interest" features. The first printed forerunners of the newspaper appeared in Germany in the late 1400's in the form of news pamphlets or broadsides, often highly sensationalized in content. Some of the most famous of these report the atrocities against Germans in Transylvania perpetrated by a sadistic veovod named Vlad Tsepes Drakul, who became the Count Dracula of later folklore.

In the English-speaking world, the earliest predecessors of the newspaper were corantos, small news pamphlets produced only when some event worthy of notice occurred. The first successively published title was The Weekly Newes of 1622. It was followed in the 1640's and 1650's by a plethora of different titles in the similar newsbook format. The first true newspaper in English was the London Gazette of 1666. For a generation it was the only officially sanctioned newspaper, though many periodical titles were in print by the century's end.

Beginnings in America
In America the first newspaper appeared in Boston in 1690, entitled Publick Occurrences. Published without authority, it was immediately suppressed, its publisher arrested, and all copies were destroyed. Indeed, it remained forgotten until 1845 when the only known surviving example was discovered in the British Library. The first successful newspaper was the Boston News-Letter, begun by postmaster John Campbell in 1704. Although it was heavily subsidized by the colonial government the experiment was a near-failure, with very limited circulation. Two more papers made their appearance in the 1720's, in Philadelphia and New York, and the Fourth Estate slowly became established on the new continent. By the eve of the Revolutionary War, some two dozen papers were issued at all the colonies, although Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania would remain the centers of American printing for many years. Articles in colonial papers, brilliantly conceived by revolutionary propagandists, were a major force that influenced public opinion in America from reconciliation with England to full political independence.

At war's end in 1783 there were forty-three newspapers in print. The press played a vital role in the affairs of the new nation; many more newspapers were started, representing all shades of political opinion. The no holds barred style of early journalism, much of it libelous by modern standards, reflected the rough and tumble political life of the republic as rival factions jostled for power. The ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 at last guaranteed of freedom of the press, and America's newspapers began to take on a central role in national affairs. Growth continued in every state. By 1814 there were 346 newspapers. In the Jacksonian populist 1830's, advances in printing and papermaking technology led to an explosion of newspaper growth, the emergence of the "Penny Press"; it was now possible to produce a newspaper that could be sold for just a cent a copy. Previously, newspapers were the province of the wealthy, literate minority. The price of a year's subscription, usually over a full week's pay for a laborer, had to be paid in full and "invariably in advance." This sudden availability of cheap, interesting reading material was a significant stimulus to the achievement of the nearly universal literacy now taken for granted in America.The

Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution, as it transformed all aspects of American life and society, dramatically affected newspapers. Both the numbers of papers and their paid circulations continued to rise. The 1850 census catalogued 2,526 titles. In the 1850's powerful, giant presses appeared, able to print ten thousand complete papers per hour. At this time the first "pictorial" weekly newspapers emerged; they featured for the first time extensive illustrations of events in the news, as woodcut engravings made from correspondents' sketches or taken from that new invention, the photograph. During the Civil War the unprecedented demand for timely, accurate news reporting transformed American journalism into a dynamic, hardhitting force in the national life. Reporters, called "specials," became the darlings of the public and the idols of youngsters everywhere. Many accounts of battles turned in by these intrepid adventurers stand today as the definitive histories of their subjects.

Newspaper growth continued unabated in the postwar years. An astounding 11,314 different papers were recorded in the 1880 census. By the 1890's the first circulation figures of a million copies per issue were recorded (ironically, these newspapers are now quite rare due to the atrocious quality of cheap paper then in use, and to great losses in World War II era paper drives) At this period appeared the features of the modern newspaper, bold "banner" headlines, extensive use of illustrations, "funny pages," plus expanded coverage of organized sporting events. The rise of "yellow journalism" also marks this era. Hearst could truthfully boast that his newspapers manufactured the public clamor for war on Spain in 1898. This is also the age of media consolidation, as many independent newspapers were swallowed up into powerful "chains"; with regrettable consequences for a once fearless and incorruptible press, many were reduced to vehicles for the distribution of the particular views of their owners, and so remained, without competing papers to challenge their viewpoints. By the 1910's, all the essential features of the recognizably modern newspaper had emerged. In our time, radio and television have gradually supplanted newspapers as the nation's primary information sources, so it may be difficult initially to appreciate the role that newspapers have played in our history.

United States Marine
Corps history 1914 - 1945

In 1914, the Marine Corps stood on the threshold of revolutionary change in its traditional mission of providing guards for ships and navy yards. During U.S. participation in World Wa I (1917–18), the Marines' numbers expanded from 10,000 to 73,000, one‐third of whom fought in France. As part of the U.S. Army's Second Division, the Marine Fourth Brigade distinguished itself against the German Army at the Battle of Belleau Wood, at Soissons, at Mont Blanc, and in the Meuse‐Argonne offensive. Some Marine leaders, such as Maj. Gen. John A. Lejeune, who was given command of the Second Division, subsequently saw the Corps' future moving away from sustained land operations.

In the decade after 1914, the Marines also developed their role as colonial infantry, imposing order and protecting U.S. interests overseas. In 1914, Marine units helped occupy the Mexican port of Veracruz and went ashore on three occasions in Haiti. In 1915, in the wake of bloody uprising, 2,000 Marines landed in Haiti with President Woodrow Wilson's goal of restoring order and reforming that troubled nation. One of them, Smedley Butler, took the rank of Haitian major general and organized a new national constabulary. The last of the Marines left in 1934. From 1916 to 1926, a Marine force occupied the Dominican Republic. In Nicaragua, Marines manned a legation guard, 1912–24, intervened in force in 1926, and returned in 1927 and remained until 1934. Marines also guarded the legation in Peking (Beijing), China, and kept at least one regiment in Shanghai from 1927 to 1941. In these actions, the Marines' fledgling air arm was shaped for direct support of ground operations.

The role of colonial infantry declined in the 1930s as the United States reduced the use of force in Latin America. But the diminishment of that role coincided with the expansion of a new mission: seizing and defending advanced naval bases in the Pacific. In the 1920s, with the U.S. Navy developing contingency plans for war with Japan, the Corps cut back to 20,000, and the Marines started to develop the doctrine of amphibious warfare. In 1921, Gen. Lejeune (commandant, 1920–29) approved a study by Maj. “Pete” Ellis to seize Japanese fortified islands in a future war as the U.S. Fleet battled its way across the western Pacific. Some exercises were conducted through 1926, but Marine attention was diverted to China and the Carib bean. During the depression, an attempt in 1931 by the U.S. Army to drastically curtail the Marines led the Corps and the navy to refocus on amphibious operations.

The Corps created the Fleet Marine Force in 1933, published its Tentative Manual for Landing Operations in 1934, and began new landing exercises with the navy. Technology lagged, however. Not until the late 1930s was a suitable landing craft developed.

In World War II, the Marine Corps, headed by Gen. Thomas Holcomb (commandant, 1936–44), fought the Japanese in the Pacific. Early in the war, ground and air Marines reinforced their reputations as tough fighters in desperate battles to defend the islands of Wake, Midway, and the Philippines. In mid‐1942, they shifted to their base‐seizure mission in the air‐land‐sea campaign against an expanded Japanese empire. The First Marine Division opened the Allied ground offensive in the Pacific in August 1942 in the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomons. It was a Marine and army campaign lasting through February 1943. The commander, Maj. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift, became Marine commandant in January 1944. The first real test of the Marines' amphibious doctrine against a hostile shore came on 20–23 November 1943 at the Battle of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, where, despite severe losses, the Marines proved that they could seize heavily fortified islands. In 1944–45, improved equipment and tactics and better coordination helped the Marines, sometimes accompanied by army units, succeed against increasingly sophisticated Japanese defenses on New Britain, the central and northern Solomons, and Roi‐Namur, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Peleliu, Okinawa, and most famously Iwo Jima. Marine air also helped to liberate the Philippines.

During World War II, the Marine Corps expanded from 19,000 in 1939 to a peak strength of 475,000 men and women in 1945. The force structure had grown to two amphibious corps each composed of divisions and supporting units, plus five aircraft wings. The secretary of the navy declared that the historic flag‐raising over Iwo Jima meant that “there will be a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”

Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1700 BCE (short chronology). The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man.

One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, on a diorite stele in the shape of a huge index finger, 2.25 m or 7.4 ft tall. The Code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele, today on display in the Louvre.

History
Hammurabi ruled for 144 years, 1792 to 1750 BC, in the preface to the law code, he states, "Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land."

In 1901 Egyptologist Gustave Jéquier, a member of an expedition headed by Jacques de Morgan, found the stele containing the Code of Hammurabi in what is now Khuzestan, Iran (ancient Susa, Elam), where it had been taken as plunder by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte in the 12th century B.C.

It is currently on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Law

The Code of Hammurabi was one of several sets of laws in the Ancient Near East.

Earlier collections of laws include the Code of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur (ca. 2050 BCE), the Laws of Eshnunna (ca. 1930 BCE) and the codex of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca. 1870 BCE), while later ones include the Hittite laws, the Assyrian laws, and Mosaic Law. These codes come from similar cultures in a relatively small geographical area, and they have passages which resemble each other.

The code has been seen as an example of even a king not being able to change fundamental laws concerning the governing of a country which was the primitive form of what is now known as a constitution. However, this interpretation may be anachronistic. The code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, and it also suggests that both the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence. The Code's provisions do not cover important areas of law and commerce. The occasional nature of many provisions suggests that the Code may be better read as a codification of supplementary judicial decisions of the king. Rather than being a modern legal code or constitution, it may have as its purpose the self-glorification of Hammurabi by memorializing his wisdom and justice. Its copying in subsequent generations indicates that it was used as a model of legal and judicial reasoning.

Examples
Here are seventeen example laws, in their entirety, of the Code of Hammurabi, translated into English:

* If anyone ensnares another, putting a ban upon him, but he cannot prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.
* If anyone brings an accusation against a man, and the accused goes to the river and leaps into the river, if he sinks in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river proves that the accused is not guilty, and he escapes unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
* If anyone brings an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if a capital offense is charged, be put to death.
* If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then the builder shall be put to death. (Another variant of this is, If the owner's son dies, then the builder's son shall be put to death.)
* If a son strikes his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
* If a man give his child to a nurse and the child dies in her hands, but the nurse unbeknown to the father and mother nurses another child, then they shall convict her of having nursed another child without the knowledge of the father and mother and her breasts shall be cut off.
* If anyone steals the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.
* If a man takes a woman to wife, but has no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.
* If a man strikes a pregnant woman, thereby causing her to miscarry and die, the assailant's daughter shall be put to death.
* If a man puts out the eye of an equal, his eye shall be put out.
* If a man knocks the teeth out of another man, his own teeth will be knocked out.
* If anyone strikes the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
* If a freeborn man strikes the body of another freeborn man of equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina [an amount of money].
* If the slave of a freed man strikes the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.
* If anyone commits a robbery and is caught, he shall be put to death.
* If anyone opens his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and the water floods his neighbor's field, he shall pay his neighbor corn for his loss.
* If a judge tries a case, reaches a decision, and presents his judgment in writing; and later it is discovered that his decision was in error, and it was his own fault, he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case and be removed from the judge's bench.

There are 282 such laws in the Code of Hammurabi, each usually no more than a sentence or two. The 282 laws are bracketed by a Prologue in which Hammurabi introduces himself, and an Epilogue in which he affirms his authority and sets forth his hopes and prayers for his code of laws.

Other copies
Various copies of portions of the Code of Hammurabi have been found on baked clay tablets, some possibly older than the celebrated diorite stele now in the Louvre. The Prologue of the Code of Hammurabi (the first 305 inscripted squares on the stele) is on such a tablet, also at the Louvre (Inv #AO 10237). Some gaps in the list of benefits bestowed on cities recently annexed by Hammurabi may imply that it is older than the famous stele (it is currently dated to the early 18th century BCE). Likewise, the Museum of the Ancient Orient, part of the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, also has a "Code of Hammurabi" clay tablet, dated to 1750 BCE., in (Room 5, Inv # Ni 2358).

In July, 2010, archaeologists reported that a fragmentary Akkadian cuneiform tablet was discovered at Tel Hazor, Israel, containing a ca. 1700 BCE text that was said to be partly parallel to portions of the Hammurabi code. The Hazor law code fragments are currently being prepared for publication by a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Henry Clay Cochrane

United States Marine Second Lieutenant Cochrane witnessed the Gettysburg Address made by President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863..

Henry Clay Cochrane (November 7, 1842 – April 27, 1913) was an officer in the United States Marine Corps during the latter half of the 19th Century and early 20th Century. He participated, most notably, as a newly minted 2nd Lieutenant in the American Civil War, and later the Spanish American War, where he served as Executive Officer of the 1st Marine Battalion during the 1898 landing at Guantanamo Bay, as well as the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, where he was involved with the China Relief Expedition commanding the 1st Regiment of Marines. At the time of his death in 1913, he was on the retired list as holding the rank of Brigadier General.

Service history
During the Civil War, then Lieutenant Cochrane accompanied President Abraham Lincoln as a member of his guard at the dedication ceremony for the new Gettysburg Battlefield Cemetery where Lincoln delivered his famed Gettysburg Address. Cochrane wrote his parents; "Dear Parents, A great event in my usually quite life has happened since I last wrote you. On Wednesday, I had the honor to attend the President of the United States as one of his temporary staff to the battlefield of Gettysburg and to the solemn consecration of the National Soldier's Cemetery."

In the latter part of the 19th Century, Henry Clay Cochrane became an ardent advocate for reform within the antiquated Marine Corps. Among other things, his recommendations for changes to the Marine uniform, which had not been updated in 12 years, partly resulted in the adoption of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor as the new Marine emblem in 1868, a uniform device which is still in use today.

As a Captain serving as the Fleet Marine Officer on board the sloop-of-war USS Lancaster , Flagship of the European Station, he was present at the bombardment of Alexandria, Egypt, by the British Fleet in July 1882. During the operation, he accompanied a landing party along with Lieutenant Littleton W. T. Waller consisting of a mixed bluejacket and Marine force to suppress looting and to protect the U.S. consulate. The Naval landing force of sixty-nine sailors and sixty-three Marines was formed, with Lieutenant Commander Charles Goodrich in command and Captain Cochrane as executive officer. Two companies comprised the force, the sailors under Navy Lieutenant Frank L. Denny and the Marines under Lieutenant Waller. The timely arrival of the ships of the European Squadron and their landing forces gave protection to the American consulate and to American citizens and interests caught up in the fighting and also afforded a refuge for the citizens of other nations who had been displaced from their homes or businesses. Advancing cautiously through the burning and rubble strewn streets, the Americans reached the Grand Square of Mehmet Ali, the heart of the city. The American Consulate was here, and it became the headquarters of the force. Although the French troops had abandoned the city and cautiously returned to their ships, the Marines secured the Grand Square and began to patrol the streets of the European Quarter, as the international business and consular area was called. Cochrane, Waller and their Marines were assigned to Lord Charles Beresford's British force for the protection of the European Quarter. The anticipated rebel counterattack never came, and a ten-day standoff ended with the arrival of the four thousand-man British relief force. According to the Times of London:

"Lord Charles Beresford states that without the assistance of the American Marines he would have been unable to discharge the numerous duties of suppressing fires, preventing looting, burying the dead, and clearing the streets."

Cochrane was also present at the coronation of Czar Alexander III at Moscow in May, 1883. In 1898, then major Cochrane was appointed second in command of the 1st Marine Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Huntington and participated in the landing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during the Spanish American War. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, he commanded the 1st Marine Regiment as part of the China Relief Expedition.

Henry Clay Cochrane retired from active duty as a Colonel in 1905, bringing to an end 42 years of service in the Marines. In 1911, he was promoted to Brigadier General on the retired list. General Cochrane died on April 27, 1913 at the age of 71 in Chester, Pennsylvania.

Civil War Marines
During the American Civil War, Capt. Josiah Watson and 38 Marines were not successful defending Pensacola Navy Yard and Pensacola against Confederate Floridian authorities leading an Alabama militia unit on Jan. 10, 1861.

No war is good, but the American Civil War was the worst in history. Brothers fought and killed each other. Union Marines fought Confederate Marines and killed each other. These are the reported numbers that were killed or died from disease:

UNION
Battle deaths: 110,070
Disease, etc.: 250,152
Total: 360,222

CONFEDERATE
Battle deaths: 94,000
Disease, etc.: 164,000
Total: 258,000

Early in 1861, the Union Navy lost most of its bases in the southern states. Notably, Floridian authorities leading an Alabama militia unit took over the Pensacola Navy Yard in Florida on January 16 and forced Marine Captain Josiah Watson to sign a pledge not to bear arms against the state of Florida. Other Floridian troops took control of all of Pensacola's forts except Fort Pickens. In April 1861, Marine Lieutenant John Cash and 110 Union Marines and assorted Union Infantry occupied Fort Pickens and held it until a larger garrison could take control of it. The Union controlled Fort Pickens throughout the Civil War.

The secession of Virginia from the Union forced Marines from the Cumberland, the Pawnee, and the Pennsylvania to destroy the Norfolk Navy Yard. Other battalions were deployed quickly to the Brooklyn and Philadelphia Navy Yards for guard duty, and another battalion provided security for the recaptured Norfolk Navy Yard in May 1862.

The last such battalion, a small unit of only 112 men commanded by Major Addison Garland, suffered the most embarrassing Marine defeat during the Civil War. Sent to Mare Island Navy Yard near San Francisco, the entire unit was captured by Captain Raphael Semmes commanding the Confederate ship Alabama off the coast of Cuba on December 7, 1862. Semmes forced the Marines to sign promissory notes not to bear arms against the Confederacy and sent them on their way.

The relatively minor role the Union Marines played during the Civil War was partially due to the small size of the Corps. On January 1, 1861, the U.S. Marine Corps numbered only 1,892 officers and men. To compensate for various losses, 38 new officers were appointed early in 1861. In July, Congress increased the size of the Corps by another 28 officers and 750 men, and President Lincoln authorized two 500-man increases in 1861.

Commandant Harris understood the primary role of the Marine Corps to be shipboard service, much as it had done during the War of 1812. The main strategy of the Union was to force the surrender of the Confederacy by blockading the Atlantic coast, a task for which the Marine Corps would be well suited.

In addition, the Union sought to capture the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. This task was given to Major General Irvin McDowell, who left Washington on July 16, 1861, at the head of some 35,000 troops. Included in this force was 1 small Marine battalion consisting of 12 officers and 336 men. Commandant Harris assigned Major John Reynolds, whose career stretched back to the Seminole War and who was one of the few veteran officers remaining in the Union Marine Corps, to command the battalion. Brevet Major Jacob Zeilin, another experienced commander, volunteered to command one of the battalion's four companies. The other officers and enlisted men in the battalion had little experience, however.

Five days later, on July 21, the Union Army was confronted by a Confederate brigade under the command of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. The Marines were assigned to support an artillery battery during the confrontation and soon found themselves caught in the midst of the Battle of Bull Run. The artillery battery the Marines were supporting changed hands three times during the battle until Confederate reinforcements appeared and tipped the battle in their favor. The Union Army, and the Marine battalion with it, dissolved. Bull Run was the only land-based battle in which the Marines participated during the Civil War. For the rest of the conflict, the Marine Corps performed its traditional role of supporting naval actions and engaging in amphibious assaults.

In December 1861, Marines destroyed a Confederate headquarters near Charleston, North Carolina, after the Dale had bombarded it. In January 1862, the Marine detachment from the Hatteras landed and burned Confederate stores at Cedar Keys, Florida.

By the end of December, 1864, Wilmington was the Confederacy’s only remaining Atlantic port. Wilmington itself was stuated on the Cape Fear River some 10 miles inland. The mouth of the Cape Fear River was guarded by the impressive Fort Fisher situated on a peninsula. One wing of the fort bisected the peninsula while a second wing turned perpendicular to the first and stretched along the Atlantic face of the peninsula. The landward face of the fort, the face that bisected the peninsula, mounted some 20 cannons. Fifty feet in front of the gun emplacements was a palisade of sharply pointed logs driven into the earth, and 500 feet in front of the palisade was a minefield controlled by electric detonators. A small battery had been emplaced at the point of the peninsula to prevent enemy ships from entering the Cape Fear River and attacking the fort from behind.

A Union fleet approached Fort Fisher on January 12, 1865, commanded by Rear Admiral David Porter. Union troops began landing on the peninsula on January 13 and started erecting gun emplacements. The next day, the fleet and the landed guns began bombarding Fort Fisher, and by mid-afternoon on January 15, all but one of the fort's guns had been disabled, the wires controlling the minefield had been severed, and the palisade had been breached.

Union forces launched two separate attacks against the landward face of Fort Fisher. Major General Alfred Terry led the Army Infantry along the riverbank while a naval brigade under Lieutenant Commander K. R. Breese, Porter's chief of staff, attacked along the seashore. The naval brigade included 1,600 sailors from the fleet led by their officers and a 400-man Marine battalion under the command of Captain Lucian Dawson. The Marine battalion advanced along the seashore with the intention of occupying successive trenches as it went and laying down covering fire for the advance of the sailors.

Dawson's battalion barely reached the second of three trenches when Breese sent him new orders, however. Believing that the slope of the beach provided sufficient cover, Breese Joined Dawson there and then ordered the entire brigade, sailors and Marines both, to charge 600 yards down the beach at Fort Fisher. The Confederate defenders fired into the charging mass as quickly as they could and managed to break the rush about 50 yards from the fort.

Captain Dawson caught up to the leading Marine companies just as the charge faltered and ordered two companies to take cover and fire at the parapet as the rest of the brigade, including two Marine companies, fled. Once the rest of the naval brigade was out of range, Dawson and the remainder of his Marines withdrew. Breese later blamed the failure of the assault on the "absence" of the Marine battalion, though he was generous enough to comment that its absence was due to poor planning rather than cowardice. Nevertheless, although some of the Marines fled, Dawson had been able to rally many of his men and performed an important role in the withdrawal of the brigade. Of the 351 casualties suffered by the naval brigade, the Marine battalion lost 16 men killed or missing and 41 wounded. Dawson and seven other Marine officers received brevet promotions and seven enlisted men were awarded Medals of Honor.

The battle for Fort Fisher raged for five hours, until another Union brigade arrived to reinforce the assault, and the defense began to crumble. While the naval attack was unsuccessful, the Army assault was able to capture the fort from the landside. The Union had captured Fort Fisher and with it control of the Cape Fear River, effectively isolating Wilmington.

The Confederate Congress established its own Marine Corps on March 16, 1861. Initially, it was planned that the Confederate Marine Corps would consist of 6 companies, each of which would be made up of a captain, first and second lieutenants, 8 noncommissioned officers, 2 musicians, and 100 men. After Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy, the Confederate Corps was increased to 10 companies - 46 officers and 944 men - and a headquarters unit consisting of a commandant with the rank of colonel, a lieutenant colonel, a major, an adjutant, a paymaster and quartermaster, a sergeant major, a quartermaster sergeant, and two musicians was established. The Confederate Corps never realized these authorized strengths, however.

Twenty U.S. Marine Corps officers left the Union and joined the Confederacy, 19 of whom accepted commissions in the Confederate States Marine Corps - the twentieth joined the Confederate Army. These men represented some of the most experienced officers then on active dury, including the adjutant officer and inspector of the Marine Corps, Major Henry Tyler, a 38-year veteran and commander of the Washington Barracks; Captain George Terrett, the hero of Chapultepec; Captains Algernon Taylor and Robert Tansill, who had been recognized for their valor during the Mexican War; Captain John Simms, who had led the assault on the Barrier Forts in China; and First Lieutenant Israel Greene, who had led the assault against John Brown's raiders at Harper's Ferry. Tyler was commissioned as the Confederate Corps's lieutenant colonel and Terrett as its major. Taylor was commissioned as quartermaster and Greene as the Corps's adjutant officer. Lloyd Beall was commissioned as Commandant Colonel of the Confederate Marine Corps. Beall probably owed this privilege to his acquaintance with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, whom he had met at West Point, the U.S. Military Academy, and with whom he served in the 2nd Dragoons before accepting a position as paymaster major, the post he resigned when the Civil War began.

The Confederate Marine Corps enlisted the first Marines in March 1861, and by July, three companies of Marines had been raised. Marine Guard detachments were raised for the CSS Sumter and the gunboat McRae as well. Confederate Marines saw their first action in July, occupying Ship Island off the coast from Biloxi, Mississippi.

Confederate marines played more than a defensive role during the Civil War. In February 1864, the Confederates launched a combined assault on a Union base on the Neuse River near New Bern, North Carolina. The Confederate Navy and Marine Corps were responsible for dealing with any Union Navy ships that might come to the aid of the Union Army when the Confederate Army attacked.

John Taylor Wood, who held commissions as a colonel in the Confederate Army and as a commander in the Confederate Navy, commanded the Confederate naval forces for the assault on New Bern. His command consisted of 115 naval officers and men from the James River Squadron, 10 midshipmen from the Naval Academy, and 25 Marines from Company C stationed at Camp Beall.

The attack began on February 1, 1864, but the Confederate Army's assault broke down almost immediately. Wood decided to continue with the naval side of the operation and sought out Union gunboats. very early on the morning of February 2, Wood's boats found the Union gunboat Underwriter and closed with it. The Confederate Marines exchanged heavy fire with the Underwriter and then boarded her and captured her after a vicious melee. Four Confederate sailors and one Marine were killed in the action, and another seven sailors and four Marines were wounded. Nine Union sailors were killed, another nineteen were wounded, and twenty-three managed to escape. Union forces on the shore began shelling the captured gunboat, and Wood decided to set the gunboat on fire and abandon it.

The fall of Fort Fisher essentially ended the participation of Union Marines during the American Civil War, but the war was not yet over for the Confederate Marine Corps. Charleston, South Carolina, finally gave in to Sherman's Army on February 17, 1865. Commodore John Tucker, the commander of the Charleston Squadron, scuttled his ships and led his sailors and Marines north to Richmond, where he incorporated the remaining Marines at Drewry's Bluff to form Tucker's Naval Brigade. Captain Tattnall led Marine Company E into North Carolina where it remained for the rest of the war.

On April 2, 1865, the Union Army broke through Confederate lines just south of Petersburg. Facing a two-to-one disadvantage, General Lee recommended to President Davis that Richmond be evacuated. Tucker's Naval Brigade joined Lee's Army as it marched south. Union cavalry easily kept pace with the retreating Confederate Army and attacked its flank and rear, slowing the Confederate column enough for Union Infantry to engage it in combat. Captain Terrett and a unit of Confederate Marines were captured in just such an engagement at Amelia Court House on April 5, 1865.

Union harassment compelled Lieutenant General Richard Ewell's Corps, including Tucker's Naval Brigade, to halt along Saylor's Creek. The Union artillery bombarded the ridge on which Ewell's troops were positioned, and then the Infantry advanced across the creek and up the slope. As the Union Army started up the slope, Ewell gave the command to counterattack, and the regiment, including Tucker's Naval Brigade with its Marine battalion, now commanded by Captain Simrns, charged down the slope and pushed the Union Army back.

Despite such a heroic effort, Ewell's regiment was enveloped by two other Union divisions, and Ewell reluctantly surrendered. Tucker's Naval Brigade, unaware of the Union envelopment and Ewell's surrender, withdrew farther south, where it was able to secret itself in a densely wooded ravine. A Union general accidentally discovered the brigade that evening and returned under truce to inform Tucker of his situation. Tucker, too, reluctantly surrendered when he learned that he was surrounded by Union forces.

Captain Simms, 6 other Marine officers, and approximately 45 Marines were captured along with Tucker's Naval Brigade. A few Confederate Marines had managed to escape capture on April 6, and so 4 Marine officers and 25 Marines, including First Lieutenant Richard Henderson, accompanied General Lee when he signed the surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 6.

The remnant of the James River Squadron, too, had been ordered to join Lee's march south. Admiral Semmes, the commander of the squadron, scuttled his ships on April 2 and then led his 500 sailors and Marines to join Lee, only to find the Army had already left. Semmes organized a train at the railroad station in Richmond and proceeded to Danville, Virginia, arriving there on April 4 to find the Confederate government already established in the little town. On April 5, Semmes's men were organized into an artillery brigade, and Semmes was given command of it as a brigadier general of the Confederate Army. On April 10, however, news arrived that Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, and the Confederate government fled farther south. Semmes's brigade was attached to the Army of North Carolina for the rest of April, but surrendered at Greensboro on May 1.

Confederate Marine Company C; had managed to survive the battle at Mobile Bay and continued to serve in the defense of the city of Mobile from March 27 until April 12, when the city fell to Union forces. It retreated up the Mobile River with the remnants of the Mobile Squadron to Nanna Hubba Bluff, where the squadron surrendered on May 10. The Civil War ended for the Confederate Marines with the surrender of the few Marines attached to the Mobile Squadron.

The Union Marine Corps had lost 77 men dead, 131 wounded, and 142 captured during the Civil War. Another 257 died of causes unrelated to combat. Two hundred fifty Confederate Marines are known to have been captured, but the lack of records prevents an estimation of other casualties on the Confederate side.