George Frank Elliott
Major General and Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps

George Frank Elliott was born on 30 November 1846 in Utah, AL.

Elliott attended the U.S. Military Academy from 1868 to 1870, and was appointed to the Marine Corps as a Second Lieutenant in 1871. During the Spanish-American War, he was promoted because of his leadership in a successful effort to destroy an enemy water supply near Cuzco, Cuba.

In 1899 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and sent to the Philippines where he commanded the First Brigade. In 1903 he was appointed Brigadier General and named as the tenth Commandant of the Marine Corps (becoming to date the only Marine Corps Commandant to be a West Point graduate).

A few months later he led a provisional brigade of Marines to Panama to help squelch an uprising in the region that threatened the construction of the Panama Canal. On 21 May 1908, he was appointed Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps. It was during this time that he battled the ill-fated attempt to redefine the role of the Marines. As Commandant, he also oversaw the construction of new Washington, DC, Marine barracks whose basic form and design are still used today.

Elliott's most significant contribution to the Marine Corps may have been when he successfully defended the Marines before the U.S. Congress to help thwart a plan by a committee commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt to merge the Marine Corps into the Army. He is credited with saving the Marine Corps because of this effort.

He retired in 1910 and died twenty-one years later in Washington, DC.

Death and Burial

Major General George Frank Elliott died on 4 November 1931. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.