The Honorable and Gallant Corps
Although Second Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that "two Battalions of Marines be raised," the goal was never accomplished by the Continental Marine Corps. During the entire American Revolution, 131 officers held Continental Marine commissions, and less than 2,000 enlisted served. The Corps was small compared to the Army and the Navy, but their role in the American Revolution was significant when defeating the British. James Fenimore Cooper, a historian, and prolific American author stated the following in volume one of his book "The History of the Navy of the United States of America:"
"At no period of the naval history of the world, is it probable that Marines were more important than during the war of the Revolution. In many instances they preserved the vessels to the country, by suppressing the turbulence of their ill-assorted crews, and the effect of their fire, not only then, but in all the subsequent conflicts, under those circumstances in which it could be resorted to, has usually been singularly creditable to their steadiness and discipline. The history of the navy, even at that early day, as well as in these latter times, abounds with instances of the gallantry and self-devotion of this body of soldiers; and we should be unfaithful to our trust, were we not to add, that it also furnishes too many proofs of the forgetfulness of its merits by the country. The Marine incurs the same risks from disease and tempests, undergoes the same privations, suffers the same hardships, and sheds his blood in the same battles as the seamen, and society owes him the same rewards. While on ship-board, necessity renders him in a certain sense, the subordinate, but nations ought never to overlook the important moral and political truth, that the highest lessons they can teach are those of justice and no servant of the public should pass a youth of toil and danger, without the consciousness of possessing a tenor to a certain and honorable reward, that is dependent only on himself. That this reward has hitherto been as unwisely as it has been unfairly withheld, from all connected with the navy, it is our duty as historians to state, and in no instance has this justice been more signally denied, than in the case of the honorable and gallant corps."
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