John Archer Lejeune
1867 - 1942
Lejeune was born on January 10, 1867, at the Old Hickory Plantation near Lacour, Louisiana, in Pointe Coupee
Parish. He was the son of Confederate army captain Ovide Lejeune. He attended the preparatory program at
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge from September 1881 to April 1884, leaving to prepare for the entrance
exam for the U.S. Naval Academy. Subsequently, he secured an appointment as a midshipman at the United States
Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1888, ranking second academically in his class of thirty‐two
midshipmen. At the completion of a two year cruise as a midshipman, he was appointed to Naval Engineering, but
was desperate to join the Marine Corps. Exhausting all conventional channels, he contacted his senator and
eventually the Secretary of the Navy arranged his appointment to the Marine Corps. He was commissioned a second
lieutenant in the Marine Corps on July 25, 1890.
Lejeune had a variety of posts