Security· American Civil War
Pilot Town garrison
A small but useful garrison duty at the mouth of the Mississippi.
In October 1862 a detachment of Marines under Lieutenant McLane Tilton was posted to hold Pilot Town, the little settlement at the river's mouth where the bar pilots lived, securing the entrance to the Mississippi for the Union naval forces working the river. The duty was garrison and watch rather than battle, the Marines holding the point that commanded the approach from the Gulf and keeping it in Union hands. No fighting and no casualties resulted. It was characteristic of the unglamorous but necessary work that fell to the Corps in the river war, holding the fixed points, the river mouths and the captured towns, that the navy needed to keep its hold on the Mississippi. Tilton, who commanded here, would later win distinction leading the Marine landing force in the Korean expedition of 1871.
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Record no. 438