Published Jun 4, 2026, 3:00 AM EDT
Cpl. John Mackie’s gun crew was cut down around him in a fight against Confederate troops. He cleared the casualties and kept his gun in action.
Cpl. John F. Mackie spent the years before the Civil War as a silversmith in New York City. Thirteen months after he enlisted in the Marine Corps, he was aboard the ironclad USS Galena on the James River when Confederate fire killed and wounded the gun crew beside him. Without waiting for orders, Mackie pulled the casualties aside and got the gun back into the fight, leading a handful of Marines who kept it firing until the ship had run out of ammunition. That act, in a losing fight at Drewry's Bluff, made him the first Marine in the nation's history to receive the Medal of Honor. He earned it on a ship the Navy itself had serious doubts about. The battle, by most accounts, was the only Civil War engagement pitting the United States Marine Corps against Confederate Marines who had broken away from the ranks.
Mackie Enlists in a Divided Marine Corps
Born in New York City on Oct. 1, 1835, Mackie made his living as a silversmith until the firing on Fort Sumter brought the nation into conflict. He enlisted a few months later at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 24, 1861, just 12 days after the first shots were fired in the Civil War. He was only 25. The Corps that took him in had just been gutted. About 20 of its officers, many of them its most seasoned leaders, had resigned to fight for the South and help build a new Confederate States Marine Corps. The rest of the Marine Corps, under a 68-year-old commandant, Col. John Harris, was spread thin across the U.S. Navy's ships and posts around the country.
