By Todd DePastino
Every Marine celebrates the USMC’s birthday on November 10. Some attend balls with cakes, swords and special messages from the Commandant and Maj. Gen. John A. Lejeune.
But the story of how that date became the Marine Corps’ official birthday is complicated. Not a simple matter of the Second Continental Congress on November 10, 1775 authorizing “two battalions of Marines” to serve “for and during the present war between Great Britain and the Colonies.”
These were the Continental Marines, the seaborne soldiers of the fledgling American Navy. They served as sharpshooters from the rigging of ships, landed on shores, and policed the decks while at sea.
Tradition holds that the first Marines were recruited at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia under the direction of Captain Samuel Nicholas, the Corps’ first commandant. It doesn’t matter that those recruits probably signed up at the “Conestoga Waggon” tavern owned by Nicholas. The Tun legend has taken hold and will never be supplanted.
When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, the Continental Navy was disbanded. So was the Continental Marines. For the next fifteen years, there was no Marine Corps. Not until July 11, 1798, when President John Adams signed into law the “Act for Establishing and Organizing a Marine Corps,” did the USMC officially emergeas a permanent branch of the United States military.
By rights, that date, July 11, should have been the official birthday. And for much of our history, it was.
But in 1921, a Marine officer named Major Edwin North McClellan thought differently. As head of the Corps’ fledgling historical section, McClellan proposed that the Marines honor their original 1775 founding instead. Commandant Major General John A. Lejeune agreed. On November 1, 1921, he issued Marine Corps Order No. 47, declaring that henceforth November 10 would be celebrated as the Marine Corps’ birthday.
The first formal Marine Corps Birthday Ball took place in 1925. No records describe the evening, but the event became an instant tradition. By the 1950s, the ceremonies had taken on the familiar form we know today: the reading of Lejeune’s order, the Commandant’s annual birthday message, and the cake-cutting ceremony. The first slice of cake is given to the oldest Marine present, who passes it to the youngest Marine, symbolizing the transfer of experience and tradition from one generation to the next.
In 1952, Commandant Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr. formalized these rituals and directed that they be included in the Marine Corps Drill Manual. No matter how isolated or remote, Marines celebrate the birthday on November 10.
Marines chose the earlier date because it connects them to their Revolutionary ancestors and makes their Corps not just one of America’s oldest military institutions, but one that predates the nation itself.
Happy Birthday, Marines.
