The Confederate Marine Corps
The US Civil War forgotten naval force fought on land and the sea in every theater from beginning to end
Never stronger than six hundred men, they fought as grey coated leathernecks to the honor of the Corps.
The Confederate States Marine Corps (CSMC) was established by an act of the Confederate Congress 16 Mar. 1861. Corps strength was authorized at 46 officers and 944 enlisted men but actual enrollment never even came close to that number. The Corps was beset with recruiting difficulties and at its largest point in October of 1864 the naval list carried the names of lists only 539 officers and men assigned to active duty in the entire organization. Though the officers were mostly former U.S. Marine officers, the first and only commandant and head of the corps was an army officer, Col. Lloyd J. Beall, a West Point graduate.
Beall was a paymaster in the U.S. Army stationed at St. Louis when he tendered his resignation and headed south at the beginning of the civil war. . Although born at Fort Adams, Rhode Island, he had married the daughter of a South Carolina senator, and his loyalties were with the South. On May 23, 1861, Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen R. Mallory, appointed Beall the Commandant-Colonel of the Confederate States Marine Corps and he served in that capacity throughout the war. An administrator during the Civil War, Beall's military knowledge and experience remained an untapped resource and he never led his men in combat. Beall worked hard to have the Confederate Marine Corps receive the personnel, supplies and other benefits accorded to other branches of the military. A Confederate Marine received no $300 bounty for joining as a man would get in the army, got $3 less a month in pay and enjoyed a longer term of service. The training of officers and enlisted Marines took place at the Marines' barracks named Camp Beall in honor of the Commandant just a short distance to the south of Richmond at Drewry's Bluff overlooking the James River. By the end of the war the Confederate Marine Corps had established a second marine training camp in Charleston, South Carolina; several permanent stations on the Mississippi River and Atlantic Coast. Thanks, in part, to Beall's efforts; the Confederate Marines gained a reputation for distinguished combat service, on the sea and land.
The CSMC was modeled after the U.S. Marine Corps, but there were some differences. The Confederate leathernecks organized themselves into permanent companies, and replaced the fife with the light infantry bugle. The uniform was close to that of the Confederate army with the exception of brass buttons with an “M” emblazoned upon them, upward pointed corporal and sergeants stripes in black and white canvas trousers for summer wear. They were armed with the 1853 pattern Enfield rifle from Britain as well as the LeMat revolver which was popular with confederate cavalrymen. Ashore they provided guard detachments for Confederate naval stations at Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, Charlotte, Richmond, and Wilmington and manned naval shore batteries at Pensacola, Hilton Head, Fort Fisher, and Drewry’s Bluff. Seagoing detachments served aboard the various warships and even on commerce destroyers. Confederate marines saw their first naval action aboard the CSS Virginia (Merrimack) off Hampton Roads, Va. in March 1862 when it fought its epic battle against the USS Monitor. After a long career the CSS Sumter was abandoned at Gibraltar and a small force was left behind including a Marine Guard commanded by Confederate Marine Sgt. George Stephenson. The ships Commanding officer Midshipman Williams Andrews was killed in October 1862 by a seaman and Sgt. Stephenson became the only marine on either side to command a ship of war in the Civil War.
The Confederate Marines were also called upon for special operations raids. In February of 1863, the Naval Dept authorized a plan to train a marine unit commanded by Captain Thomas S. Wilson to destroy ironclads by boarding and scuttling them. This was in anticipation of a Union attack of Charleston which occurred in April of 1863. The attack was beaten back before the marines could be used and Captain Wilson’s men stood down. General Robert E. Lee later devised a plan where a battalion of Marines were to slip through the naval blockade and make a amphibious landing at Point Lookout above Washington D. C. to free the Confederate Prisoners of War there. This was to be done in July of 1864 as part of General Early's raid on Washington. The force was led again by Captain Wilson- the marine raider of the confederacy. The ships carrying the Marines were called back and the mission aborted due to perceived leaks regarding their activities and the unit finished the war as conventional infantry. The battle honors of the Confederate Marine Corps include the Appomattox Campaign (1865 ) , the Peninsula Campaign (1862) Butler’s Bermuda Hundred Campaign, Defense of Fort Fisher, Wilmington, North Carolina, Richmond
As the fortunes of the Confederacy grew dark in the spring of 1865, Navy and Marines personnel were brought to Drewry's Bluff and formed into fighting units such as Tucker's Naval Battalion which fought with distinction at the battle of Saylor's Creek Virginia. In the Battle of Sayler's Creek (April 6 1865) during the retreat from Petersburg to Appomattox nearly a quarter of the Confederate army was cut off and forced to surrender to Union cavalry under Sheridan. The heart of the marines’ surrounded here while trying to protect Robert E Lee's supply trains. When surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House, it still included at least four Marine officers and 21 enlisted Marines. When Richmond fell Commandant Beall disbursed the remainder of the funds at his disposal and discharged himself without surrendering the Confederate Marine Corps. The former commandant remained in the city until his death in November 1887 when he died in a house fire. Tragically Beall had kept most of the Confederate States Marine Corps records at his home for safekeeping and they too were lost in the fire.
Source:
"Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War"
“The Confederate States Marine Corps: The Rebel Leathernecks” (Hardcover) by Ralph W. Donnelly
