MOTO MONDAY

Here's a great piece of history - a signed commissioned by Abraham Lincoln and Gideon Welles (Secretary of the Navy).  On 26 November 1861, Robert O'Neill Ford is appointed a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.  The United States Marine Corps played a surprisingly small role in the Civil War considering the numerous amphibious assaults undertaken by Union forces. Whereas millions of men took up arms for the Federal government, less than 4,000 Marines were authorized by President Lincoln in 1861. Consequently, only 148 Marines were killed in action during a war that otherwise consumed hundreds of thousands of American lives.