Gilded Age Marines

The decade following the Civil War witnessed a rudderless Navy.    Bereft of appropriations, subject to the vagaries of partisan politics, lacking in public support, and itself myopic regarding technological advancement, the service suffered atrophy both in practice, and in innovations lost.    But amidst this drift and atrophy, a kernel of resilience and innovation grew.      The Marine Corps suffered no less than the Navy did.    A much smaller service, with a simple mission to support the Navy, Marine leadership lacked in the imagination it had exercised openly only a decade earlier. Both in its Civil War leadership, and in the leadership of the following decade, the service failed to impress individuals in the Navy Department and in the Congress.    The failure to make itself essential to the Union, and the Navy, meant the Marine Corps periodically had to fight for its very existence.   In this essay we’ll examine the decline of the Navy and Marine Corps during the decade following