It is typical of the tradition-conscious Marines that the official car of their Commandant bears District of Columbia license number 1775—the year the Continental Marines were organized.
Other officials in Washington display their importance by one or two-digit numbers. Not the Marines. To them, 1775 is a magic number, and its significance is plain to the initiated. The majority of people who do not recognize it are looked upon as pathetically uninformed.
This pride and sense of history permeates the Corps. Its annual Birthday Ball on 10 November is a striking display of tradition wherever the merest handful of Marines are present. The all-male mess night, complete with formal dress, "playing in the roast," and after-dinner port wine (passed to the left) is a common occurrence.
The globe and anchor has been the symbol of the Marine Corps for a full one hundred years. If these first hundred do not prove to have been the hardest years, it is almost certain that historians will not regard them as having been easy.
Who designed this emblem that Marines have borne in battle with an almost reverent honor from Korea in 1871 to Vietnam in 1969?
The original Marines had no special insignia, only the distinctive green uniform and "buttons to suit the facings."
After the Revolutionary War, along with such dashing accoutrements as leather cockades, red feathers and scarlet plumes of plush, a brass eagle appeared.
The Secretary of the Navy, on 14 October 1805, prescribed for the men "High Crowned Hats, without a Brim, and a plume of red plush on the front of the Hat with a Brass Eagle and plate and Hat-Band of blue, yellow and red cord with a Tassel of the same colours."
This blazon was worn by a generation of Marines, from 1805 to 1840.
By the time of the War with Mexico, the Marine Corps dress emblem had been simplified to a gold -wreath encircling the letters "USM." About the same time, 1840-1859, the fouled anchor appeared for the first time, also within a gold wreath, for wear on the officers' fatigue caps and undress caps.
Shortly before the Civil War, the emblem for full dress uniform evolved into an ornate U. S. shield resting in a half-wreath, with a bugle and letter "M" in the ring of the bugle. Only the bugle and letter were worn on the undress uniform. The institution of the bugle followed European custom, denoting light infantry, and was worn by the Royal Marines of Great Britain during the same period, when it was conferred on them for their performance in the Crimean War.
The U. S. Marines wore the light infantry bugle through the Civil War, ashore at Bull Run, and in the long, tedious—but decisive—blockade operations along the Atlantic Coast, Gulf Coast, and Mississippi River.
After the Civil War, all the services contracted to peacetime levels. It was not an inactive period, however, with the Army deeply involved in the Indian Wars, and the Marine Corps in such far-flung place as Formosa, Japan, Mexico, Hawaii, Samoa. Nicaragua, China, Panama, Chile, and Argentina.
Yet, none of these were of signal attention and there was sufficient time to indulge in arms, accoutrements and uniforms, progressively ornate as the years of comparative peace stretched out toward the Spanish-American War.
The Marine Corps obtained its first general officer in 1867—Brigadier General Jacob Zeilin, who had commanded a company of Marines at the first battle of Bull Run.
General Zeilin was typical of his time, a severe-looking man, luxuriantly bearded with the clean, Yankee upper lip; remindful of Charles Dickens, or Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. He wrote in a delicate, almost feminine hand, with a pronounced slant and ornate capital letters.
One of the early problems he addressed in the postwar doldrums was the development of a distinctive ornament for the Marine Corps, something separate from the infantry bugle worn in the late war and distinguished from the Army only by the inconspicuous "M" set in the ring of the bugle.
His first solution was peremptory. Without preliminary action, General Zeilin, as Commandant of the Marine Corps and with the approval of the Secretary of the Navy, issued an order on 2 May 1867, substituting a new ornament for the bugle then worn by commissioned officers with the undress (working) uniform:
A silver convex circle one and one sixteenths inches diameter, representing the Western Hemisphere; the Continent and parallel lines to be gold, surmounted by a Silver eagle three fourths of an inch high, with wings extended one and one fourth inches; to be worn in front on a scarlet cloth ground, trimmed off so as to present a margin of one eighth of an inch, following the lines of the ornament.
The central elements of this design were the Western hemisphere and eagle, but the design as yet did not fully resemble the modern emblem. Adjutant and Inspector Major Augustus S. Nicholson notified Marine commanding officers of the change on 13 May 1867, together with the information that Horstmann and Brothers, prominent military suppliers of Philadelphia, could supply the ornaments.
Personal papers of Henry Clay Cochrane, in the Marine Corps Museum, show that he, as a First Lieutenant, ordered 20 "devices" from Horstmann for himself and his fellow officers in April 1867, the month before the announcement of the change. The correspondence further shows that the sample device was rejected and the order subsequently revoked. General Zeilin followed suit and revoked his own establishment of the new ornament on 5 June 1867. The designer of this short-lived device is not known, and no sample of it has yet been found. Yet the globe and eagle had made its appearance, however briefly, and it was not to die out completely.
On 12 November 1868, two days after the 93rd birthday of the Corps, General Zeilin appointed a board of officers to decide upon various cap ornaments which we must assume had been proposed from several sources. Who made these proposals, or what they were, remains obscure. General Zeilin referred to "various devices of cap ornaments proposed for the Marine Corps" in his appointing order. The board of officers, in their report, also refer to "several patterns of devices." Unfortunately, there is only the record of the adopted design—the present globe and anchor. No credit is given to any individual by the existing correspondence.
Whatever the origin, the process of selection was a model of prompt action. The board of officers, appointed on 12 November reported their findings and recommendation to General Zeilin the following day. Zeilin gave prompt approval and submitted the proposal, with a "single colored likeness" of the device, to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles on 17 November.
Secretary Welles, quite as prompt as the General, authorized adoption of the new cap ornament on 19 November 1868.
There is an obvious relationship between this emblem and that of the Royal Marines of Great Britain. The fouled anchor originated as the badge of the Lord High Admiral and became part of the Royal Marine insignia when they were placed under the direct authority of that august personage in 1747. The globe, east of Suez for the Royal Marines, was adopted, with the western hemi sphere displayed for the U. S. Marines. The crown of Britain was replaced by the America can eagle. Originally, even the British motto "Per Mare, Per Terram," was assumed by the U. S. Marines in its English transliteration of "By sea and land."
The exact description of the Marine emblem recommended by the board appointed by General Zeilin was specifically for the fatigue (duty) cap of both officers and enlisted men:
". . . we have examined the several patterns of devices presented as a substitute for the ornament now worn on the fatigue cap of the Officers and enlisted men of the United States Marine Corps and have respectfully to recommend the following as the most appropriate for adoption.
For Commissioned Officers: A frosted silver hemisphere struck from solid plate with chased parallels and continent of North and South America of gold plate; to be surmounted by a spread eagle cut from solid silver and securely fastened by means of a tang of silver soldered on the inner side of the hemisphere. The hemisphere to rest upon the shank, between the stock and flukes, of a foul anchor worked in gold bullion. The dimensions to be as follows: Hemisphere three fourths (3/4) of an inch in diameter, the eagle three eighths (3/8) of an inch from top of head to point of claws, spread of wings one (1) inch. Shank of anchor to intersect the hemisphere between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer on the left, and the Equator and Tropic of Capricorn on the right. Anchor over all in length one and one half (1-1/2) inches and one eighth (1/8) of an inch in width, stock five eighths (5/8) an inch in length, one eighth (1/8) of an inch in width, the inner edge of the flukes and stock touching the hemisphere; the arms of anchor including flukes to be eleven sixteenths (11/16) of an inch in length from point of fluke to point of shank, and one eighth (1/8) of an inch in width. The whole to be on a ground work of dark blue cloth. We enclose herewith a drawing of accurate dimensions of the design recommended.
For enlisted men—same as for Officers, except that the whole be struck from plate brass, 1/16 inch thick."
(The last phrase "1/16 inch thick" was added to the original letter in a different script than that of the body of the letter.)
Of particular interest is the two-inch square piece of paper upon which the "coloured likeness of the device" was submitted by General Zeilin to the Secretary of the Navy. It is not certain that the original recommendation of the board of officers included a "drawing of accurate dimensions." Conceivably, the drawing referred to in the board's letter was a photograph, later hand-colored for submission to Secretary Welles. Color photography, of course, did not exist in 1868. The original sample is a smoothly textured surface, suggesting an oil painting covering a black-and-white photograph.
The emblem adopted in 1868 was still a step or two removed from the Marine Corps emblem as we know it today. As originally constituted, it was for use on fatigue, and, by extension, undress caps; the bugle and "M" remained as the full dress ornament. The new ornament replaced the old one on officers' full dress epaulettes in November 1869, but it was not until publication of the Uniform Regulations of 1875 that the new ornament achieved full status as the one and only emblem of the Marine Corps. It was worn on all of the ornate head gear of the time—full dress, undress (normal duty) and fatigue (work and off duty) uniforms.
The emblem as we know it today consists of the same one-piece metal hemisphere, eagle, and foul anchor. As constituted in 1868, however, only the version for enlisted men was totally of metal; that for officers consisted of a metal hemisphere and eagle attached to an embroidered anchor. This was also standardized in the Uniform Regulation of May 1875, which prescribed a one-piece metal ornament for both officers and enlisted men Except for minor changes, such as redesigning of the eagle and anchor at the time of the adoption of the Marine Corps Seal in 1954, d the emblem adopted in 1868 and standardized in 1875 has remained the symbol of the Marine Corps to the present day.
The mystery of the origin of this ornament remains, perhaps permanently, since the archives of the Marine Corps contains little documentary proof as to its designer.
Some hints remain.
One is the claim, unsupported by official records, that a prominent jeweler of Washington, D.C., Karl Wilhelm Breuninger, originated the now famous globe and anchor.
On Breuninger's death in 1908, the Washington Star obituary described him as the "dean of manufacturing jewelers in Washington," and as "the original designer and manufacturer of the United States Marine Corps device when the Corps was in its infancy."
There is no record that the Marine Corps took any note of this at the time.
Further, the son of Brigadier General George C. Reid, U. S. Marine Corps, advanced a claim in 1936 that his father, then deceased, had a key role in the development of the Marine emblem as we know it today. The elder Reid was aide-de-camp to General Zeilin from 29 April 1867 to 15 September 1867, and was purported to have drawn "the present emblem and had a model of it made at the jewelry store of one Breuninger, on Pennsylvania Avenue." The younger Reid's personal recollection of conversations in his youth with his father was the basis for the claim. Further official correspondence of Mr. Reid with the Marine Corps in 1951, 1954, and 1960, and subsequent thorough research of documentation in several sources and repositories, failed to yield any substantiation of the claim made by Reid's son.
In the meantime, however, Marine Corps historians had contacted a daughter of Karl Breuninger in an attempt to clarify the controversy. Unfortunately, no documentary evidence could be found from this source, her claim being based upon childhood conversations with her father on the subject.
Since neither claim can be documented, any solution must be based solely on circumstantial evidence, and cannot be conclusive. Reid's claim of 1936 contains a compelling coincidence in that Breuninger is purported to have made a model of Reid's design. It is not known whether Reid had any knowledge of the claim in the Breuninger obituary when he advanced his claim in 1936. Assuming that the Breuninger claim was unknown to Reid in 1936, the whole matter takes on more substance. It becomes a possibility that both the Breuninger and Reid claims share the same validity.
This validity stands, however, only for the 1868 design. This emblem was an elaboration of the short-lived 1867 adoption. Reid's claim is based upon his father's having proposed the new emblem while he was aide-de-camp to General Zeilin, The 1867 emblem was adopted less than two weeks after Reid assumed that post, and one ponders whether enough unofficial time was left him to design and procure a model of the hemisphere and eagle adopted on 2 May 1867. In no way, nevertheless, does this detract from the Breuninger claim, in that no reference has in any instance been made to Reid, and time considerations have not been a factor.
The globe and anchor surmounted by the eagle is now part of our national heritage, symbol of a hundred years of service and sacrifice.
It may have been the product of Reid's imagination, or Breuninger's hand, or some other person now forgotten, but it matters more that it is borne today, as in the past, by men who honor it and wear it proudly, whose deeds have given this device an enduring, unequalled luster.
A veteran of enlisted service in the U. S. Navy (USS Levy (DE-162) from 1942 to 1946) and commissioned service in the U. S. Army (1951 to 1954), Mr. Long was a civilian Army Historian in Tokyo before serving as a historian with the 18th FB Wing on Okinawa from 1954 to 1958. He was a historian in the Marine Corps Historical Branch for three years before assuming his present duties as Curator of History and Fine Arts at the Marine Corps Museum, Quantico, Virginia.
Colonel Wyckoff retired from the Marine Corps in August, 19,68, after over 30 years of service. An infantry officer, he participated in numerous campaigns through World War II, the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts. He has been writing articles for magazines, including the PROCEEDINGS, since 1962 and is continuing a writing career since retirement. His last assignment on active duty was Head of the Civil Affairs Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps.