The United States Marine Corps in the Civil War: The Second Year

In this second of David Sullivan's series on the history of the United States Marines, the Marines come into direct battle with the Confederate States Marines at Drewry's Bluff, May 15, 1862. There Corporal John Mackie earned the first Medal of Honor awarded to an enlisted United States Marine. In this second year of the war, the Marines fought everywhere the Navy did, especially in the Union's year-long struggle to gain control of the Mississippi River and the Confederacy's coasts. Bringing the personalities of the Corps to life, Sullivan includes such episodes as when Captain John L. Broome's two hundred Marines occupied New Orleans briefly until the Army relieved him. Sullivan, continuing in the tradition of his first work, also shows the everyday life of the Leathernecks at sea and on shore. During 1862, the United States Marine Band began its rise to preeminence. The author also uses his immense research into unpublished sources concerning Lieutenant Colonel John G. Reynolds' court-martial to end the legend that an internecine struggle within the Corps' senior ranks was responsible for the Corps not taking an even more active part in the Civil War.