November 11, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode, I spoke with Major General Jason Q. Bohm regarding his book "Washington's Marines: The Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution 1775-1777". The fighting prowess of United States Marines is second to none, but few know of the Corps’ humble beginnings and what it achieved during the early years of the American Revolution.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pyle World War
Two Museum Podcast. Your podcast at Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is Doug Hess and if you're tuning into the Ernie
Pile World War Two Museum Podcast, what we do on
this podcast is share with you pieces of piles life
from its humble beginning as an Indian on an Indiana farm,
(00:36):
becoming a post surprise winning an American journalist and war
correspondent who is best on one for stories about ordinary
American soldiers during World War Two. But today we're going
to take a slight turn and where you're going to
have a very special guest with us today, Major General
Jason Boehm, talking about his latest book, Washington's Manes, The
(01:01):
Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution seventeen seventy
five through seventeen seventy seven. First of all, Major General,
thank you for your thirty plus year service in the military.
But also welcome to the Ernie Power World War Two
Museum Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thank you, Doug, and thanks for all you're doing with
the museum. Obviously, Ernie Pyle contributed greatly to telling our
normal soldier, sailors, airman, and marine stories doing World War
Two and couldn't be happy to have the museum up
and run.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well, thank you, and again thank you for coming on
to spend a little bit of your day with us.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
As we do with all of our authors.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Just want to allow you to kind of give a
brief overview of what the book's about and how this
book came about as well.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Sure. Thanks. Well. As a career marine, you know, all
marines know.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That our history and our tradition are are very important
to us. In fact, we're getting ready to celebrate the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of not only the birth
of our nation, but the birth of our corps first,
and so you know, as part of my normal self
study and my own research, I was learning about the
Marine Corps throughout my entire career, and I figured to
(02:18):
deep dive into the origins of the Corps. And what
I found out at that time is we have a
parallel story between the birth of our nation, the birth
of the Marine Corps, and the Navy and the Army
as well. So Washington's Marines tells all four of those
stories simultaneously, with an emphasis on the Marine Corps. But
it's so extremely important, particularly now with the divisiveness in
(02:41):
the country and that the challenges of a lot of
our American history being taken out of the schools, that
it's important to tell the story factually and not based
off of emotion or what people perceive to be the case.
And even inside the Marine Corps, what I found in
searching for this book is that there are a lot
(03:02):
of myths about the Marine Corps, about its origins, about
the first comment on about Ton Tavern and us being
born in the bar that I love to talk about
because it's true. But you know, so what I'm able
to do is decipher a little bit between myth and
fact in this book Washington's Marine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Sure, and did anything really surprise you during the research
of this book and the writing of it.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Well, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
One of the things was one of those myths that
I'm talking about is the fact that our first commissioned
officer in the Marine Corps is a gentleman named Samuel Nicholas.
And Samuel Nicholas is well known as the first comment
on the Marine Corps. In fact, if you go into
the Pentagon today and you look down the Marine Corps corridor.
(03:53):
There's a picture of Samuel Nicholas painting of him, and
he is identified as the first commana on the Marine Corps,
but that in fact is not true because my research
identified that the Congress did not bestow the title commandant
on our senior marine until seventeen ninety, well after the
end of World War excuse me, the American Revolution. And
(04:15):
now no doubt he was the first and senior marine
officer in the Marine Corps, but he was never the commandant.
That wasn't starting until General Burrows received that appointment in
seventeen ninety. You know another thing that was just a
great nugget of history that I never knew about is
I am an American Revolutionary War enthusiasts, and so others
(04:40):
will know about this name Henry Knox, and you know
you have Fort Knox in the army. Knox was the
commander of George Washington's Continental Artillery and at the time
in three key battles the Battle of Trenton, the Battle
of wasusin Pink Creek, in the Battle of Princeton, and
(05:00):
what became known as the Ten Crucial Days in the
turning point of the war. In the winter of seventeen
seventy six seventy seven, that Samuel Nicholas had created a
battalion of Marines by order of the Congress. They pulled
three marine detachments off of the American frigates being built
(05:21):
in Philadelphia to form a battalion of Marines to fight
under Washington. And so they were actually detached from the Navy,
attached to the army. And this was the marine's first
protracted land campaign.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
So a lot of Marines don't know that history. But
the real interesting aspect of that is once the Ten
Crucial Days was complete, Washington brought his army up into
the highlands of New Jersey to a place called Morristown,
and that began a stage of the war referred to
as the forage War, in which the British were held
up in northern New Jersey and they had to go
(05:58):
out into the countryside in order to forge for food
for their horses and for themselves. And Washington and the
Continental Marines, still fighting as an independent battalion under the Army,
would raid those forging parties out there in the countryside.
But what occurred at this time, because the disease and
(06:21):
desertion and terminating enlistments. Is that Henry Knox now had
more cannons than he had soldiers demand them. In essence,
the Continental Artillery Corps had become nonexistent during the Forged War.
So Knox looks around.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And he goes, wait a minute, He goes, don't those
marines know how to operate cannons on navy ships? And
those cannons are very similar to field guns with the army.
So he specifically went to General Washington and asked to
have the Battalion of Marines assigned as the Army's Continental
Corps of Artillery during the Forged War, and washing to
(07:00):
improve that plan, and the Marines then became Knox's Corps
of Artillery for about a four month period during that
springtime and the end of the winter of seventeen seventy seven,
And actually two of the marine officers, one company commander
and the other of Italian agudant, resigned their marine commission
to stay in the Army artillery throughout the remainder of
(07:23):
the war.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I wanted to kind of go back to chapter one,
something that you talked about, and I know that you
mentioned that you enjoy talking about this as well as
the birth of the.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Marines in a tavern. Maybe elaborate a little bit more
on that.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, so this again is a myth that there's a
tavern in downtown Philadelphia referred to as Ton Tavern was
owned by a gentleman named Robert Mullin, who actually became
one of Nicholas's company commanders on that stage of the
war that I just discussed. Well, Robert Mullen did not
(08:06):
get commissioned into the Marine Corps until seventeen seventy six,
and he did use it as a recruiting place to
recruit marines for the ship detachments for the frigates that
were being built in Philadelphia. And that's what people believe
to be the origin of the Corps. But the Corps
was actually created a year earlier. So why is Ton
(08:28):
Tavern known as the birthplace of the Corps. It's actually
because the Congressional Naval Committee that included John Adams, our
future president, John Langdon, and Celastin met in the second
story room of the Ton Tavern to do the business
of what was known as the Marine Committee, and it
(08:51):
was in Ton Tavern where they devised the plans for
the creation of originally two battalions of marines to serve
with the fleet. And so that is the formal and
genuine answer of why Ton Tavern is the birthplace of
the Core, not because we like to drink ale and
you know, draw people off the streets and get them
drunk before we recruit them, although that did happen starting
(09:14):
in Earnest in seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yes, Oh that's great.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
The other thing I really enjoyed about your book is
there's a lot of detail in your book and a
lot of stories that really kind of hone in and
I thought really drove the point throughout this whole book,
and I really appreciated that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Was is that something you started out to do.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Or did that just kind of evolve in your writing
in your research?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Well, I think as a marine again, in loving our history,
it's easy. You know, we have a term in the
Naval services, we call them C stories, you know, and
we're notorious for telling sea stories. And usually there's a
lesson applied to a C story along with humor and.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
You know, heroics and different things.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So I think naturally that's part of my DNA to
be able to tell a story, and you know, in
Truth and Advertisement. I'm the former command in General of
Marine Corps Recruiting Command as well, so I thought it
was really important to tell the Marine Corps story for
entice in young men and women to want to become
United States Marines have the opportunity to earn the title Marine.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
And I think by telling those stories.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
What you're doing is you're taking this beyond just being
a dry history book, and it's demonstrating to the country
that these were human beings. These were men and women
just like we are today, and they had all their faults,
all their talents, all their miseries, you know, the challenges
and the opportunities they dealt with in life, just like
we do today.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Maybe talk little bit about Washington's original thought with the Marines,
you know, what was his goal, what was his vision?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah, so this is a great story in itself.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So a lot of people don't know why did we
create a Marine Corps.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
It wasn't just to serve with the fleet. Originally.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It was actually because the Committee of Safety from Passamaquaddy
Nova Scotia, which is a British holding at the time,
wrote to the Continental Congress asking if they could be
included in the Association of North America's fighting for their liberty.
So the Continental Congress starts salivating, thinking, holy cow, we're
(11:40):
going to be able to bring Canada in as the
fourteenth Colony. And so that's why the Marine Committee was
tasked by the Full Congress to develop a plan in
order to help facilitate that in occurrent and the people
of Passamaquaddy because they were on Nova Scotia, that is
where Halifax is located, which was the principal Royal Navy
(12:05):
facility in the North.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
American continent at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
And so they recommended that we do a naval campaign
in order to invade Nova Scotia and capture Halifax, which
would put the British into very bad place. In order
to do that, the Naval Committee devised a plan to
create two battalions of Marines. That's the resolution that was
created and presented to the Congress on the ninth and
(12:33):
approved on the tenth of November seventeen seventy five, which
became the traditional birthday of the Marine Corps. But George Washington,
in this plan was actually assigned to be the one
as the only commander in chief in the US military
forces at the time. To lead this expedition and to
(12:53):
create the two battalions of Marines by cherry pickin soldiers
currently serve in the Army who had seafear and experience,
And if you know your American Revolution history, there was
another group of men like this, and they were referred
to as the Washington Marble Marble Fishermen, and they're the
(13:13):
ones that actually helped Washington's army escape from the Battle
of Long Island, and they helped they manned the boats
that Washington used across the Delaware on Christmas Day in
seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
So a similar situation.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Now, Washington had just stood up the Continental Army using
militia units holding the British under siege outside of Boston.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
After Lexington and conquered.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
So he is he has an enormous challenge ahead of
him to create, organized, train, and execute military operations with
this rag tag group of militiamen that don't know any
discipline at the time.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
So when he.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Gets this task from the Congress, he's like, oh, heck no,
you know, I got my hands filled already dealing with
trying to organize the army. So he writes to John
Hancock who's the President of the Congress at the time,
and says, I can't do it. John Hancock writes back
to Washington and says, Okay, George, you're off the hook,
(14:14):
but we're still going to stand up to this body
of marines to serve on the land and on the sea.
The Congress understood the importance of this force, and so
to answer your question, Washington was not supportive of the
marines when they were be informed, and in fact, he
didn't even know how to utilize them once they showed
(14:36):
up on the scene. Once once he got through that
New York and the New Jersey campaign, his army of
nineteen thousand soldiers had dwindled down to only two thousand
and five hundred that he had left with him in
Pennsylvania ready to try and seize the initiative, which eventually
became the Battle of Trenton. But because he didn't have
(14:58):
sufficient forces, he wrote to the Congress and said, I
need help, and that was the catalyst for forming this
battalion of Marines that were sent up to Delaware to
join the army on outside of Trenton and would be attached.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
To the army for the next four or five months.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But when they showed up in Trenton as Washington was
retreating south, he didn't know what to do with the marines.
And there was a gentleman named John Calwalder who was
in charge of the Philadelphia Associators, which was a militia
unit that came from Philadelphia to help as well. And
Washington turns to Calwalder and says, hey, go talk to
(15:36):
those marines and find out whether they mean to fight
on the land or the water in the Delaware River
on the ships operating on the Delaware. And Calwalder came
back and said, well, General, they're here to fight for you.
And he said, very well, sir, I placed him under
your command. And so the Marine Battalion was attached to
Philadelphia Associators for those ten crucial bays. But Washington did
(15:58):
not hold him in high regard guard only because they
were a drain on his resources for the army. And
in fact, that same philosophy has occurred throughout American history,
and there have been other presidents, specifically Harry S.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Truman and Dwight D.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Eisenhower, both army generals, by the way, who tried to
disestablish the Marine Corps because it's all about the fight
for resources, and those fights are still happening in the
halls of Congress today.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So do you think it's fair to say that if
it hadn't been for the Continental Congress and them seeing
the need for the Marines, that it's very easy that
the Marines could have came and went. Is that a
fair assessment.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Or I think that's been absolute fact.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Okay, if it was up to Washington, we wouldn't exist.
And in fact, if it was not for the Congress,
over the history of the Marine Corps over the last
two hundred forty nine years, we would not exist today.
Because I'm not exaggerating when I say that there have
been former presidents that have tried to disestablish the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I just find it ironic that you have somebody like
Washington that was kind of iffy at best, and then
you have Congress that had the vision and the foresight
to say, no, I think we really need these these men.
And this is my personal opinion. Sometimes I don't think
Congress gets it right the majority of the time, but
(17:32):
they did on this one.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And actually, this is the model that works so well
in American government is the civilian leadership and oversight of
the military, because if we left it up to generals,
it would look very different. Quite frankly, so the general
and it's not Washington's fault. He was just completely engaged
at the tactical level, and the Congress is appened to
(17:55):
think longer term and think at the strategic level.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, no, it's it always seems to work out the
right way. And I agree with you one hundred percent
that having that separation of the military versus a civilian
force and them being in charge of it, nine times
out of ten they seem to get it right.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, it can get frustrating any now every now and then,
but generally speak and we get it right.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, that makes a great conversation. Well, Major Jener, I
know we were about out of time, but just one
last question before we let you go, is that what
is maybe one takeaway from this book that you hope
the readers take away from?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
What I really hope people will take away from this
is just a rich history and tradition of our core,
our army, our navy, and how important they are to
first win in and then sustaining our great history, our liberties,
and our freedoms. Because that is just as relevant today
(19:02):
as it was when this all began in seventeen seventy five.
And right now we're facing a recruiting crisis, and if
you're not tracking, all of the other services, with the
exception of the Marine Corps, have all failed their recruit
mission over the last two years. The Marine Corps is
the only service that has made its recruited mission these
(19:23):
last two years. And I would argue that that's because
of our institutional culture and being unapologetic about who we are.
We exist to win our nation's battles, and that requires
killing and capturing the enemy at times, and we're unapologetic
about doing that, and we don't chase the shiny object
(19:43):
and try and chase the latest fad.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
We stay true to that mission.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
But we need Americans today to understand the value of
service to our great nation, and hopefully this will help
plant that seed in our citizens.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Absolutely well, again, thank you so much for coming on
into our life. Listeners, please go out and get a
copy Washington's Marines, The Origins of the Corps and the
American Revolution seventeen seventy five through seventeen seventy seven. Again,
Major General, thank you so much for spending some time
with us today and again, thank you for your service
(20:16):
to our country.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
It's my honor, Doug, thank you. I lass you all
in simper fidelas.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Thank you very much
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pyle World War
Two Museum Podcast. Your podcast at Ernie Pyle, the voice
of the American soldier during World War Two. My name
is Doug Hess and if you're tuning into the Ernie
Pile World War Two Museum Podcast, what we do on
this podcast is share with you pieces of piles life
from its humble beginning as an Indian on an Indiana farm,
(00:36):
becoming a post surprise winning an American journalist and war
correspondent who is best on one for stories about ordinary
American soldiers during World War Two. But today we're going
to take a slight turn and where you're going to
have a very special guest with us today, Major General
Jason Boehm, talking about his latest book, Washington's Manes, The
(01:01):
Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution seventeen seventy
five through seventeen seventy seven. First of all, Major General,
thank you for your thirty plus year service in the military.
But also welcome to the Ernie Power World War Two
Museum Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thank you, Doug, and thanks for all you're doing with
the museum. Obviously, Ernie Pyle contributed greatly to telling our
normal soldier, sailors, airman, and marine stories doing World War
Two and couldn't be happy to have the museum up
and run.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well, thank you, and again thank you for coming on
to spend a little bit of your day with us.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
As we do with all of our authors.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Just want to allow you to kind of give a
brief overview of what the book's about and how this
book came about as well.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Sure. Thanks. Well. As a career marine, you know, all
marines know.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That our history and our tradition are are very important
to us. In fact, we're getting ready to celebrate the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of not only the birth
of our nation, but the birth of our corps first,
and so you know, as part of my normal self
study and my own research, I was learning about the
Marine Corps throughout my entire career, and I figured to
(02:18):
deep dive into the origins of the Corps. And what
I found out at that time is we have a
parallel story between the birth of our nation, the birth
of the Marine Corps, and the Navy and the Army
as well. So Washington's Marines tells all four of those
stories simultaneously, with an emphasis on the Marine Corps. But
it's so extremely important, particularly now with the divisiveness in
(02:41):
the country and that the challenges of a lot of
our American history being taken out of the schools, that
it's important to tell the story factually and not based
off of emotion or what people perceive to be the case.
And even inside the Marine Corps, what I found in
searching for this book is that there are a lot
(03:02):
of myths about the Marine Corps, about its origins, about
the first comment on about Ton Tavern and us being
born in the bar that I love to talk about
because it's true. But you know, so what I'm able
to do is decipher a little bit between myth and
fact in this book Washington's Marine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Sure, and did anything really surprise you during the research
of this book and the writing of it.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Well, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
One of the things was one of those myths that
I'm talking about is the fact that our first commissioned
officer in the Marine Corps is a gentleman named Samuel Nicholas.
And Samuel Nicholas is well known as the first comment
on the Marine Corps. In fact, if you go into
the Pentagon today and you look down the Marine Corps corridor.
(03:53):
There's a picture of Samuel Nicholas painting of him, and
he is identified as the first commana on the Marine Corps,
but that in fact is not true because my research
identified that the Congress did not bestow the title commandant
on our senior marine until seventeen ninety, well after the
end of World War excuse me, the American Revolution. And
(04:15):
now no doubt he was the first and senior marine
officer in the Marine Corps, but he was never the commandant.
That wasn't starting until General Burrows received that appointment in
seventeen ninety. You know another thing that was just a
great nugget of history that I never knew about is
I am an American Revolutionary War enthusiasts, and so others
(04:40):
will know about this name Henry Knox, and you know
you have Fort Knox in the army. Knox was the
commander of George Washington's Continental Artillery and at the time
in three key battles the Battle of Trenton, the Battle
of wasusin Pink Creek, in the Battle of Princeton, and
(05:00):
what became known as the Ten Crucial Days in the
turning point of the war. In the winter of seventeen
seventy six seventy seven, that Samuel Nicholas had created a
battalion of Marines by order of the Congress. They pulled
three marine detachments off of the American frigates being built
(05:21):
in Philadelphia to form a battalion of Marines to fight
under Washington. And so they were actually detached from the Navy,
attached to the army. And this was the marine's first
protracted land campaign.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
So a lot of Marines don't know that history. But
the real interesting aspect of that is once the Ten
Crucial Days was complete, Washington brought his army up into
the highlands of New Jersey to a place called Morristown,
and that began a stage of the war referred to
as the forage War, in which the British were held
up in northern New Jersey and they had to go
(05:58):
out into the countryside in order to forge for food
for their horses and for themselves. And Washington and the
Continental Marines, still fighting as an independent battalion under the Army,
would raid those forging parties out there in the countryside.
But what occurred at this time, because the disease and
(06:21):
desertion and terminating enlistments. Is that Henry Knox now had
more cannons than he had soldiers demand them. In essence,
the Continental Artillery Corps had become nonexistent during the Forged War.
So Knox looks around.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
And he goes, wait a minute, He goes, don't those
marines know how to operate cannons on navy ships? And
those cannons are very similar to field guns with the army.
So he specifically went to General Washington and asked to
have the Battalion of Marines assigned as the Army's Continental
Corps of Artillery during the Forged War, and washing to
(07:00):
improve that plan, and the Marines then became Knox's Corps
of Artillery for about a four month period during that
springtime and the end of the winter of seventeen seventy seven,
And actually two of the marine officers, one company commander
and the other of Italian agudant, resigned their marine commission
to stay in the Army artillery throughout the remainder of
(07:23):
the war.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I wanted to kind of go back to chapter one,
something that you talked about, and I know that you
mentioned that you enjoy talking about this as well as
the birth of the.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Marines in a tavern. Maybe elaborate a little bit more
on that.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, so this again is a myth that there's a
tavern in downtown Philadelphia referred to as Ton Tavern was
owned by a gentleman named Robert Mullin, who actually became
one of Nicholas's company commanders on that stage of the
war that I just discussed. Well, Robert Mullen did not
(08:06):
get commissioned into the Marine Corps until seventeen seventy six,
and he did use it as a recruiting place to
recruit marines for the ship detachments for the frigates that
were being built in Philadelphia. And that's what people believe
to be the origin of the Corps. But the Corps
was actually created a year earlier. So why is Ton
(08:28):
Tavern known as the birthplace of the Corps. It's actually
because the Congressional Naval Committee that included John Adams, our
future president, John Langdon, and Celastin met in the second
story room of the Ton Tavern to do the business
of what was known as the Marine Committee, and it
(08:51):
was in Ton Tavern where they devised the plans for
the creation of originally two battalions of marines to serve
with the fleet. And so that is the formal and
genuine answer of why Ton Tavern is the birthplace of
the Core, not because we like to drink ale and
you know, draw people off the streets and get them
drunk before we recruit them, although that did happen starting
(09:14):
in Earnest in seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yes, Oh that's great.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
The other thing I really enjoyed about your book is
there's a lot of detail in your book and a
lot of stories that really kind of hone in and
I thought really drove the point throughout this whole book,
and I really appreciated that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Was is that something you started out to do.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Or did that just kind of evolve in your writing
in your research?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Well, I think as a marine again, in loving our history,
it's easy. You know, we have a term in the
Naval services, we call them C stories, you know, and
we're notorious for telling sea stories. And usually there's a
lesson applied to a C story along with humor and.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
You know, heroics and different things.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So I think naturally that's part of my DNA to
be able to tell a story, and you know, in
Truth and Advertisement. I'm the former command in General of
Marine Corps Recruiting Command as well, so I thought it
was really important to tell the Marine Corps story for
entice in young men and women to want to become
United States Marines have the opportunity to earn the title Marine.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
And I think by telling those stories.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
What you're doing is you're taking this beyond just being
a dry history book, and it's demonstrating to the country
that these were human beings. These were men and women
just like we are today, and they had all their faults,
all their talents, all their miseries, you know, the challenges
and the opportunities they dealt with in life, just like
we do today.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Maybe talk little bit about Washington's original thought with the Marines,
you know, what was his goal, what was his vision?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah, so this is a great story in itself.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So a lot of people don't know why did we
create a Marine Corps.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
It wasn't just to serve with the fleet. Originally.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It was actually because the Committee of Safety from Passamaquaddy
Nova Scotia, which is a British holding at the time,
wrote to the Continental Congress asking if they could be
included in the Association of North America's fighting for their liberty.
So the Continental Congress starts salivating, thinking, holy cow, we're
(11:40):
going to be able to bring Canada in as the
fourteenth Colony. And so that's why the Marine Committee was
tasked by the Full Congress to develop a plan in
order to help facilitate that in occurrent and the people
of Passamaquaddy because they were on Nova Scotia, that is
where Halifax is located, which was the principal Royal Navy
(12:05):
facility in the North.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
American continent at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
And so they recommended that we do a naval campaign
in order to invade Nova Scotia and capture Halifax, which
would put the British into very bad place. In order
to do that, the Naval Committee devised a plan to
create two battalions of Marines. That's the resolution that was
created and presented to the Congress on the ninth and
(12:33):
approved on the tenth of November seventeen seventy five, which
became the traditional birthday of the Marine Corps. But George Washington,
in this plan was actually assigned to be the one
as the only commander in chief in the US military
forces at the time. To lead this expedition and to
(12:53):
create the two battalions of Marines by cherry pickin soldiers
currently serve in the Army who had seafear and experience,
And if you know your American Revolution history, there was
another group of men like this, and they were referred
to as the Washington Marble Marble Fishermen, and they're the
(13:13):
ones that actually helped Washington's army escape from the Battle
of Long Island, and they helped they manned the boats
that Washington used across the Delaware on Christmas Day in
seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
So a similar situation.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Now, Washington had just stood up the Continental Army using
militia units holding the British under siege outside of Boston.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
After Lexington and conquered.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
So he is he has an enormous challenge ahead of
him to create, organized, train, and execute military operations with
this rag tag group of militiamen that don't know any
discipline at the time.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
So when he.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Gets this task from the Congress, he's like, oh, heck no,
you know, I got my hands filled already dealing with
trying to organize the army. So he writes to John
Hancock who's the President of the Congress at the time,
and says, I can't do it. John Hancock writes back
to Washington and says, Okay, George, you're off the hook,
(14:14):
but we're still going to stand up to this body
of marines to serve on the land and on the sea.
The Congress understood the importance of this force, and so
to answer your question, Washington was not supportive of the
marines when they were be informed, and in fact, he
didn't even know how to utilize them once they showed
(14:36):
up on the scene. Once once he got through that
New York and the New Jersey campaign, his army of
nineteen thousand soldiers had dwindled down to only two thousand
and five hundred that he had left with him in
Pennsylvania ready to try and seize the initiative, which eventually
became the Battle of Trenton. But because he didn't have
(14:58):
sufficient forces, he wrote to the Congress and said, I
need help, and that was the catalyst for forming this
battalion of Marines that were sent up to Delaware to
join the army on outside of Trenton and would be attached.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
To the army for the next four or five months.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But when they showed up in Trenton as Washington was
retreating south, he didn't know what to do with the marines.
And there was a gentleman named John Calwalder who was
in charge of the Philadelphia Associators, which was a militia
unit that came from Philadelphia to help as well. And
Washington turns to Calwalder and says, hey, go talk to
(15:36):
those marines and find out whether they mean to fight
on the land or the water in the Delaware River
on the ships operating on the Delaware. And Calwalder came
back and said, well, General, they're here to fight for you.
And he said, very well, sir, I placed him under
your command. And so the Marine Battalion was attached to
Philadelphia Associators for those ten crucial bays. But Washington did
(15:58):
not hold him in high regard guard only because they
were a drain on his resources for the army. And
in fact, that same philosophy has occurred throughout American history,
and there have been other presidents, specifically Harry S.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Truman and Dwight D.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Eisenhower, both army generals, by the way, who tried to
disestablish the Marine Corps because it's all about the fight
for resources, and those fights are still happening in the
halls of Congress today.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So do you think it's fair to say that if
it hadn't been for the Continental Congress and them seeing
the need for the Marines, that it's very easy that
the Marines could have came and went. Is that a
fair assessment.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Or I think that's been absolute fact.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Okay, if it was up to Washington, we wouldn't exist.
And in fact, if it was not for the Congress,
over the history of the Marine Corps over the last
two hundred forty nine years, we would not exist today.
Because I'm not exaggerating when I say that there have
been former presidents that have tried to disestablish the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I just find it ironic that you have somebody like
Washington that was kind of iffy at best, and then
you have Congress that had the vision and the foresight
to say, no, I think we really need these these men.
And this is my personal opinion. Sometimes I don't think
Congress gets it right the majority of the time, but
(17:32):
they did on this one.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And actually, this is the model that works so well
in American government is the civilian leadership and oversight of
the military, because if we left it up to generals,
it would look very different. Quite frankly, so the general
and it's not Washington's fault. He was just completely engaged
at the tactical level, and the Congress is appened to
(17:55):
think longer term and think at the strategic level.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, no, it's it always seems to work out the
right way. And I agree with you one hundred percent
that having that separation of the military versus a civilian
force and them being in charge of it, nine times
out of ten they seem to get it right.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, it can get frustrating any now every now and then,
but generally speak and we get it right.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, that makes a great conversation. Well, Major Jener, I
know we were about out of time, but just one
last question before we let you go, is that what
is maybe one takeaway from this book that you hope
the readers take away from?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
What I really hope people will take away from this
is just a rich history and tradition of our core,
our army, our navy, and how important they are to
first win in and then sustaining our great history, our liberties,
and our freedoms. Because that is just as relevant today
(19:02):
as it was when this all began in seventeen seventy five.
And right now we're facing a recruiting crisis, and if
you're not tracking, all of the other services, with the
exception of the Marine Corps, have all failed their recruit
mission over the last two years. The Marine Corps is
the only service that has made its recruited mission these
(19:23):
last two years. And I would argue that that's because
of our institutional culture and being unapologetic about who we are.
We exist to win our nation's battles, and that requires
killing and capturing the enemy at times, and we're unapologetic
about doing that, and we don't chase the shiny object
(19:43):
and try and chase the latest fad.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
We stay true to that mission.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
But we need Americans today to understand the value of
service to our great nation, and hopefully this will help
plant that seed in our citizens.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Absolutely well, again, thank you so much for coming on
into our life. Listeners, please go out and get a
copy Washington's Marines, The Origins of the Corps and the
American Revolution seventeen seventy five through seventeen seventy seven. Again,
Major General, thank you so much for spending some time
with us today and again, thank you for your service
(20:16):
to our country.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
It's my honor, Doug, thank you. I lass you all
in simper fidelas.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Thank you very much
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