Kind of.

The Marine Corps always struggles with how to justify itself as a separate force. The Army does the land fighting and the Navy does the ship fighting and where does that leave the Corps? In other militaries "marines" are just Army soldiers assigned to ships. Plus, you have the issue of it being a component of the Department of the Navy--it's not called the Department of the Navy because the Marines are top dog over there. So, there is a lot of pressure behind the idea of folding the Marines into the Army.

But, the Marines have always found a mission that they will excel at and that requires a different force composition, or mindset, or just particular brand of crazy than the Army--amphibious assault, guarding nuclear weapons on a carrier, or the first reaction force into a conflict zone. They also have done a very good job at building a very strong esprit. You can say that it makes sense from a bureaucratic perspective to do away with the Corps, but from a "winning wars" perspective they keep serving vital functions, so it's not likely they'll ever be disbanded.

You might be thinking of the time - When the Revolution ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the Marines, like the Navy, were disbanded. It wasn't until 15 years later, on July 11, 1798, that President John Adams signed into law a congressional act which created—or re-created, depending how you're counting—the United States Marine Corps. But if I remember correctly, so too the Army was disbanded, because there was no central miliary under the Articles of Confederation and only local states militias were supposed to make up the military forces until we got the Constitution in 1789 - BTW The USMC is not part of the Army, It has always been part of the US Navy - It is a Military Armed Naval force that fights on Navy Vessals (to repel enemy boarding parties) and is also used for naval invasions to occupy ports or strastigic landings for later (to arrive and occupy) other US armed forces. The most famous of this type of thing was the battle of Derma Tripoli 1805 when 8 US marines with 400-500 Arab-Greek mercenaries over threw the Tripoli Barbary Pirates. Other famous Marine events are, Halls of Montazuma (refers to the Battle of Chapultepec, during the Mexican-American War, where a force of Marines stormed Chapultepec Castle) and Iwo Jima (1945).

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No. The Marine Corps is still a major service organized with the Navy. They have about 180,000 active service.

Since the formation of this nation the United States Marine Corps has had a few people throughout the history of the United States who have tried to either disband them completely or roll them and their mission into the Army. George Washington didn't want any standing fighting force after the Revolution and we can debate as to why, personally I think he saw a standing military as a threat that potentially could overthrow him. To that end he did disband the Navy, sent sailors home, transferred the officers and ships to the Army. Then he was trying to disband the Army when he was convinced that shrinking it and keeping its mission limited was a better idea which he agreed and did and also tried to disband the Marines. The Marines saved themselves by becoming the military force specifically tasked with protecting the Nation's Capital in so much that they also had to police the streets and assist fire brigades if a fire broke out, all in the name of protecting the Capital.