Merrill L. Bartlett served as an officer in the Marine Corps for twenty years, with final assignment at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he earned three awards for excellence in teaching history. He is the author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of seven books on naval history, and he has published more than a hundred essays, encyclopedia entries, forewords to books, and book reviews.

Articles by Merrill L. Bartlett

Gunboat Palos

River Raid on Korea

By Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired) and Jack Sweetman
December 2001
In an excerpt from the new Naval Institute Press book, The U.S. Marine Corps: An Illustrated History, the authors recount the Korean Expedition of 1871—a military success but a diplomatic ...

Politically Incorrect but Militarily Correct

By Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
February 2004
In what some longingly refer to as “The Old Corps,” wayward behavior was often dismissed as a trait of a battle-ready Marine. Here, a military historian presents a few celebrated ...
navy art collection

A Fight to the Finish

By Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
November 2008
Leathernecks and Doughboys were fighting and dying together 90 years ago up to the final hours of World War I.
u.s. marine corps combat art collection

Guadalcanal: A Real Hot Potato

By Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
November 2007
Marines in the first great land battle of World War II issued an irreverent jab at Navy commanders. But did they deserve it?

Book Reviews

Reviewed by Carla Rahn Phillips, Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, USMC (Ret.), Dewey Lambdin & James P. Delgado 
August 1999
The Grand Strategy of Philip II Geoffrey Parker. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. 446 pp. Photos. Notes. Bib. Index. $35.00 ($31.50). Reviewed by Carla Rahn Phillips Running a ...
ERIC SMITH

Two Admirals for an Ensign

By Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
February 1998
The Navy Department's failure to ease the glut of post-Civil War officers and new officer candidates in the 1880s prompted congressional intervention.

Book Reviews

Reviewed by Dwight R. Messimer, Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), & Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
June 1994
Sailor of the Air: The 1917-1919 Letters and Diary of CMM/A Irving Edward Sheely Lawrence D. Sheely (ed.), Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1993. 221 pp. Append. Bib. Ind ...

Book Reviews

Reviewed by Dr. Malcolm Muir, Jr., Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett, U. S. Marine Corps (Retired), Colonel Robert E. Barde, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), & Sir James Cable
September 1991
Armored Ships: The Ships, Their Settings, and The Ascendancy That They Sustained for 80 Years Ian Marshall. Charlottesville, VA: Howell Press, 1990. 180 pp. Bib. Illus. Ind. $39.95 ($31.96). Reviewed ...