Combat· Korean Expedition (Shinmiyangyo)
Battle of Ganghwa
The decisive fight of the Korean expedition and the largest Marine combat action between the Civil War and the war with Spain.
After Korean batteries fired on an American survey party, a landing force of about a hundred Marines under Captain McLane Tilton, with several hundred sailors, went ashore on Ganghwa Island in June 1871 to punish the affront. Over two days they took the river forts one after another, the climax being the storming of the citadel the Americans called Fort McKee, carried by a bayonet charge up the slope into hand-to-hand fighting with its defenders. The Koreans fought to the death, some two hundred and forty falling in the works; the American loss was three killed and ten wounded, among them Lieutenant Hugh McKee, mortally hurt leading the assault, and the Marine Private Denis Hanrahan. Six Marines won the Medal of Honor, the Corps' first for foreign combat.
Record no. 42