John Archer Lejeune was an American soldier. He was United States Marine Corps lieutenant general and the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps. His service with the Marine Corps after he retired was as the 5th Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute.
Background
John Archer Lejeune was born at Old Hickory Plantation, Raccourci, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. His father, Ovide Lejeune, originally a wealthy landowner of Acadian stock, had been ruined by the Civil War and was struggling to reestablish himself. His mother, Laura Archer (Turpin) Lejeune, though born in Natchez, Mississippi, was of Maryland Irish-Huguenot parentage. One of her forebears, after whom the boy was named, was the Baltimore physician John Archer.
Education
With an elder sister, Lejeune was educated at home by his mother until, at thirteen, he was sent to school near Natchez. Two years later he entered Louisiana State University, from which, in 1884, he was appointed to Annapolis. He graduated in 1888, sixth in a class of thirty-five. Later he attended the Army War College. He finished brilliantly and acquired as friends many army officers destined for high places in World War I.
Career
After two years of sea duty as a naval cadet, Lejeune, reasoning that his aptitude lay in handling men rather than machinery, applied for assignment to the Marine Corps. The naval authorities bluntly told him he stood too high in his class and vetoed the application. Displaying early evidence of tenacity and political adeptness, Lejeune took his case to the Secretary of the Navy and, with support from his Senator, was in July 1890 appointed second lieutenant, U. S. M. C. His early years were relatively uneventful, though he saw some action during the Spanish-American War aboard the cruiser Cincinnati.
The postwar expansion of the Marine Corps brought him rapid promotions: captain in 1899, major in 1903. In 1903 he received command of the so-called "floating battalion" of the Atlantic Fleet. This mobile battalion, embarked aboard a naval transport, was then the most important tactical unit of the Corps. It was Lejeune's battalion that President Theodore Roosevelt sent when, in 1903, he "took Panama. " In 1905 Lejeune was given command of the Marine Barracks in Washington, D. C. , traditional showplace and springboard for picked officers.
Then, from 1907 to 1909, he held intermittent command of the Marine brigade in the Philippines. In 1909 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. His propensity for active soldiering undoubtedly accelerated his rise in ensuing years. In 1913 he was placed in command of a new brigade, the Marine Corps Advance Base Force. When in 1914, as part of a controversy with the revolutionary government of Mexico, President Wilson ordered American occupation of the port of Vera Cruz, Lejeune's brigade, together with landing parties from the fleet, swiftly secured the city. After army garrison units arrived, Lejeune and the Marines remained at Vera Cruz for nearly a year, a fruitful tour during which he organized a Marine field artillery battalion, improvised the Corps's first motor transport unit, and directed Marine aviators in their first operational missions.
In his next assignment, as Assistant to the Commandant (i. e. , chief of staff) of the Marine Corps from 1915 to 1917, Lejeune's foresight, reflected in legislation in which he had a guiding hand, did much to enlarge the Corps and make it ready for World War I. Characteristically, he readily achieved harmonious relationships with members of Congress and with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in charge of the Marine Corps, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
When America entered the war, Lejeune (promoted to brigadier general in 1916) bent every effort to get to France. Despite many obstacles, including the extreme reluctance of Gen. John J. Pershing and the army general staff to include Marine officers or units in the American Expeditionary Forces, Lejeune in 1918 obtained command of the 4th Marine Brigade, the lone Marine combat unit in France. Soon afterward, advanced to major general, he succeeded to the command of the 2d Infantry Division, generally considered the best in the A. E. F. Lejeune led the 2d in a series of notable victories at St. Mihiel and Blanc Mont (which General Pétain of France called "the greatest single achievement of the 1918 campaign") and in the Meuse-Argonne.
On June 20, 1920, Lejeune was appointed Commandant of the Marine Corps. During his nine-year tenure he laid many of the foundations of the modern Corps. Besides keen administrative skill, he brought to the post leadership, foresight, and common sense, as well as shrewd political judgment. Lejeune was a modernizer, but one who respected useful traditions. He founded the Marine Corps Schools for officer education and systematized the intentionally diverse selection of future officers from many sources rather than from any one academy. His preeminent achievement as commandant was to institute the Marines' development of amphibious warfare doctrine, tactics, and technique, and to foresee their application to future war with Japan. It was Lejeune who converted the Corps from its "Banana War" role as colonial infantry into a modern expeditionary force in readiness.
When Lejeune stepped down as commandant on March 5, 1929, he was immediately chosen superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute--the first Marine officer to hold this post. He retired eight years later at the age of seventy. Lejeune was also deeply religious, being an Episcopalian and, like his father, a devoted Mason. He died in 1942 at Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, of cancer of the prostate. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Lejeune described himself as "physically powerful and constitutionally light-hearted. " In appearance he was homely, rugged, gnarled, and instantly attractive. He was a man of total integrity and instinctive kindness.
Connections
On October 23, 1895, Lejeune had married Ellie Harrison Murdaugh of Portsmouth, Virginia. They had three daughters, Ellie Murdaugh, Laura Turpin, and Eugenia Dickson.