Less than four months after the Continental Congress created the Marines, Samuel Nicholas and his men were headed toward enemy shores.
On November 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress authorized two battalions of Marines.
The order existed.
The men were being recruited.
A new fighting force was taking shape.
But a resolution passed in Philadelphia did not yet make a reputation.
That would have to be earned.
Less than four months later, the Continental Marines would climb into small boats off an island in the Bahamas, move toward a hostile shore, and begin a tradition that would follow Marines for generations.
The place was New Providence.
The date was March 3, 1776.
And America's first Marines were going ashore.
A Revolution Desperate for Gunpowder
In early 1776, the American Revolution was far from won.
The colonies were fighting the most powerful empire in the world, and the Continental forces desperately needed the materials required to continue the war.
Among the most important was gunpowder.
Without powder, muskets and artillery were little more than expensive pieces of wood and iron.
The British understood that.
So did the Americans.
In February 1776, Commodore Esek Hopkins, commander in chief of the newly established Continental Navy, led a squadron out of the Delaware Bay.
His fleet included the Alfred, Columbus, Andrew Doria, Cabot, Providence, Wasp, Hornet, and Fly.
Congress had directed Hopkins to conduct operations against British naval forces along the American coast. But Hopkins had also been given discretion if circumstances made those orders impractical.
He chose another target.
New Providence in the Bahamas.
At Nassau, the British maintained military stores badly needed by the Revolution.
Hopkins intended to take them.
Samuel Nicholas Goes to Sea
Among the Marines aboard Hopkins' fleet was the man who had been given the job of recruiting and organizing America's new Marines:
Captain Samuel Nicholas.
Nicholas had received his commission as a captain of Marines on November 28, 1775. Soon afterward, he joined the Continental ship Alfred as its Marine officer.
Now he was about to lead Marines into combat.
The Continental fleet sailed from the Delaware on February 17, 1776.
Ice had delayed its departure for weeks.
Once free, the ships headed south.
Their destination was not a battlefield in Massachusetts or Virginia.
It was an island hundreds of miles from the American mainland.
That fact matters.
The Marines had been created specifically with maritime service in mind. Congress wanted men capable of serving effectively at sea when required.
At New Providence, that idea would be put into action almost immediately.
March 3, 1776
Hopkins' squadron reached New Providence in early March.
The original plan called for surprising Nassau by entering the harbor directly.
Surprise did not last.
The appearance of the American force alerted the island's defenders, forcing Hopkins to change his approach.
The Americans instead prepared to land east of Fort Montagu, one of the fortifications guarding the approaches to Nassau.
Shortly before noon on March 3, a landing force under Samuel Nicholas moved toward shore.
Marine Corps historical accounts describe approximately 230 Marines and 50 sailors coming ashore about two miles east of Fort Montagu.
They climbed from their boats into the surf carrying muskets, cartridge boxes, and bayonets.
These were not yet the Marines of dress blues, Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblems, or amphibious assault vehicles.
Many wore a mixture of early military clothing and civilian garments.
But the essential idea was already there.
Marines.
Ships.
A hostile shore.
A mission ashore.
The First Amphibious Assault
The landing at New Providence is recognized in official Marine Corps history as the first amphibious assault by the Continental Marines.
The landing force formed and advanced toward Fort Montagu.
The confrontation that followed was remarkably different from the bloody amphibious battles Marines would experience in later centuries.
The fort was not stormed under murderous fire.
There was no Tarawa reef.
No Iwo Jima beach.
No artillery barrage tearing apart the landing force.
The British defenders withdrew.
Nicholas and his Marines occupied Fort Montagu without suffering the kind of battle they might have expected.
Their first amphibious assault had secured its initial objective.
But Nassau itself remained ahead.
A Night at Fort Montagu
Rather than immediately push into Nassau, the American force remained at Fort Montagu overnight.
That delay gave the British governor, Montfort Browne, an opportunity.
And he used it.
The Americans had come to New Providence largely because they believed the island held a significant stockpile of gunpowder.
Browne arranged for much of that powder to be loaded aboard vessels and sent away toward St. Augustine, Florida.
By the time the Americans completed their occupation of Nassau, much of the prize they wanted most was gone.
It was an important lesson in warfare:
Taking the objective and taking it quickly are not always the same thing.
Nassau Falls
On March 4, the Americans moved into Nassau.
Governor Browne surrendered.
Fort Nassau, Government House, and the town came under American control.
Although much of the gunpowder had escaped, the expedition was far from empty-handed.
The Americans seized a substantial quantity of military stores, including cannon, mortars, shot, shells, and other equipment badly needed by the revolutionary forces.
The Continental Navy had sailed hundreds of miles from home, landed Marines and sailors on enemy territory, captured British fortifications, occupied Nassau, and removed military supplies for use in the American war effort.
The new Marines had completed their first expedition.
More Than a Raid
New Providence matters for more than the supplies captured there.
It demonstrated something fundamental about why the Marines had been created.
Only months earlier, Congress had called for Marines familiar with maritime affairs who could "serve to advantage by sea when required."
At New Providence, that concept became reality.
Marines sailed with the fleet.
They transferred from ships to small boats.
They landed on foreign soil.
They organized ashore.
They seized military objectives.
Then they returned to the fleet.
The operation contained the basic elements of an expeditionary mission that Marines would repeat, refine, and eventually master over the next two centuries.
Before There Was an America
There is another remarkable part of the story.
The raid on New Providence took place in March 1776.
The Declaration of Independence would not be adopted until July 4, 1776.
Samuel Nicholas and his Continental Marines therefore carried out their first amphibious assault before the United States of America had formally declared itself an independent nation.
The country was still being born.
So was the Corps.
Yet Marines were already going ashore.
The Fleet Heads Home
After stripping New Providence of useful military stores, Hopkins' fleet departed the Bahamas on March 17.
The expedition had not achieved everything Hopkins wanted.
Most of the gunpowder had escaped.
And Hopkins' decisions during the cruise would later become the subject of political and military controversy.
But the Marines under Nicholas had accomplished their mission ashore.
They had landed.
They had taken their objectives.
They had helped secure badly needed military supplies.
And they had established a precedent.
Congress Takes Notice
The success of the expedition reached Philadelphia.
John Hancock, serving as President of the Continental Congress, congratulated Hopkins on the operation and noted Congress' satisfaction with the spirit and bravery demonstrated by the men involved.
For a Marine force only months old, New Providence was an important beginning.
The Continental Marines were no longer simply an idea written into a congressional resolution.
They had deployed.
They had gone ashore.
They had completed a combat expedition.
A Tradition Begins
No Marine standing on New Providence in 1776 could have known what would follow.
They could not have imagined Marines advancing toward Derna in North Africa.
They could not have imagined Belleau Wood.
Guadalcanal.
Tarawa.
Iwo Jima.
Inchon.
Hue City.
Or the countless other places where Marines would move from sea to land in the centuries ahead.
The weapons would change.
Wooden sailing ships would become steel warships.
Longboats would eventually give way to landing craft, amphibious vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft.
The scale of amphibious warfare would become almost unimaginable to the Marines of 1776.
But the fundamental concept was already visible on that beach in the Bahamas:
Get there.
Go ashore.
Take the objective.
Accomplish the mission.
The First Marines Had Arrived
Four months earlier, Congress had created the Marines on paper.
At New Providence, they began building their reputation.
They were still Continental Marines.
The Eagle, Globe and Anchor did not exist.
"Semper Fidelis" had not yet become the Marine Corps motto.
The United States itself had not formally declared independence.
But on March 3, 1776, Samuel Nicholas led America's Marines from the sea onto foreign soil.
And a tradition more than two centuries old began with Marines stepping from small boats into the surf.
The first Marines had gone ashore.
They would not be the last.
Semper Fidelis.
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