. . "The Halls of
Montezuma" refers to the
Battle of Chapultepec on 12/13 September 1847 during the
Mexican–American War, where a force of Marines stormed
Chapultepec Castle. Strictly, the usage "Halls of Montezuma" is poetic license, as the building which the Marines stormed had been erected by the Spanish rulers of Mexico, more than two centuries after the Aztec Emperor
Montezuma was overthrown. At the time of the assault, the fort was actually the newly founded Mexican Military Academy. Prior to Mexican independence one of the Spanish viceroys had built a personal residence on the hill (1786). However, in Aztec times Chapultepec Hill and its hot springs were a royal spa. Marine Corps tradition maintains that the red stripe worn on the dress-blues trousers of officers and noncommissioned officers, and commonly known as the
blood stripe, commemorates the high number of Marine NCOs and officers killed storming the castle of Chapultepec in September 1847. As noted, , Minneapolis, 2011. The music is from the "Gendarmes' Duet" (or the "bold gendarmes") from the revision in 1867 of the
Jacques Offenbach opera
Geneviève de Brabant, which debuted in
Paris in 1859. Correspondence between Colonel
Albert S. McLemore and Walter F. Smith (the second leader of the
United States Marine Band) traces the tune: The name of the opera and a part of the chorus was secured from Wallach and forwarded to Smith, who replied:
John Philip Sousa once wrote: Today, the preferred version officially performed by the U.S. Marine Band is a 1915 arrangement by Edward M. Van Loock, a member of the Marine Band at the time. Another later arrangement from the 1950s by
Donald R. Hunsberger is also accepted for official performances. The lyrics are also contained in the book
Rhymes of the Rookies published in 1917. The author of these poems was W. E. Christian. The book is available online in several formats. It consists of a series of poems regarding military life prior to World War I. Some websites, including the official USMC website, claim that the U.S. Marine Corps secured a
copyright on the song either 19 August 1891 or 18 August 1919. U.S. Copyright Law prohibits copyrighting "any work of the United States Government", including subordinate agencies such as the Marine Corps, but allows them to hold "copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise". The
Library of Congress asserts that the song was originally copyrighted in 1919 by
The Leatherneck, which was started by off-duty US Marines in 1917 using a donation from the YMCA, and therefore might not be considered a "work of the United States Government". (It does not state whether Leatherneck's copyright was ever transferred to the Marine Corps.) In addition, several composers do hold copyrights on different arrangements of the song. These copyrights cover only the specific arrangements and not the song as a whole. In 1929 the
commandant of the Marine Corps authorized the three verses of the Marines' Hymn as the official version, but changed the fifth through eighth lines: This older version can be heard in the 1951 film
Halls of Montezuma. On 21 November 1942, Commandant
Thomas Holcomb approved a change in the words of the first verse's fourth line from "On the land as on the sea" to "In the air, on land, and sea" to reflect the addition of
aviation to the Corps' arsenal.
Western Illinois University uses the hymn prior to all football games. They are the only nonmilitary academy allowed to use the hymn. The university has had permission to use
the official nickname, mascot, and hymn of the Corps since 1927. ==Lyrics==