In describing the battle, where 105 U.S. Marines fought against untold numbers of entrenched Korean defenders, with 650 Koreans killed in its aftermath, Commander Low commented that the Korean "Tiger Fighters" fought back with a courage "rarely equalled and never excelled by any people."

I can't think of a higher compliment in remembering those early Korean defenders who probably made up for what they lacked in technology, training and tactics with a surfeit of bravery.

Also, interesting question about what could've happend if Korea had emulated Japan's Meiji Restoration early on.

Although it's tempting to say that Korea could've easily benefitted by following Meiji Japan's lead in modernizing and opening up to the West, I think major social, political and cultural differences between Yi-dyansty Korea and Meiji Japan effectively precluded such reforms from taking root in Korea at the time.

For starters, consider some fundamental political differences between Yi Korea and Meiji Japan.

The Korean monarch up to the end of the 19th Century had absolute power over his people. Korean kings were basically primitive sino-centric despots and proto-dictators, a'la Kim Jong-il, Adolf Hitler and Sadaam Hussein. For all intents and purposes, Korea at the end of the 19th Century, was functioning at a level socially and politically akin to Europe in the dark ages.

On the other hand, in Meiji Japan, the emperor was nothing more than a mere symbolic, quasi-religious entity, with no real political power, other than serving as a figurehead and rubber stamp for the various lords, advisors, and other minor officials who were constanty vying against each other and jockeying for power in post-feudal Japan.

However, one maxim did prevail in 19th Century Japan that made the Meiji restoration possible. It was the common Japanese belief of "Rich country, Strong Army." This belief did not exist in Korea, and was actually repulsed by the Korean Kings, the Yangban "scholars" and court officials as being "primitive" and "backwards". So while the Japanese were forging ahead, medieval-like despotic kings continued their rule in Korea up to the early part of the 20th Century.

Also during the mid-19th Century, Korea's de facto foreign policy, as articulated by King TaeWon was "no foreign treaties, no trade, no missionaries, no Christianity, no West and no Japan".

TaeWon's sino-centric sycophants also parroted this line, as well as other various mantras about how "moral rectitude" and "Confucian virtue" would eventually trump the "barbaric" shows of force used by the West and Japan.

In short order though, these egg-headed mandarins would all be put in their place, but not until King TaeWon was succeeded by his relatively foreigner friendly son, King Kojong in 1873.

Regardless, up to the Yi Dynasty, Korea lacked the cultural, social and political underpinnings to handle modernization or free trade of any kind.

It was only through a series of forced unilateral treaties with Japan and the U.S. that Korea was eventually pried open. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it was the backwards Korean Confucianist mentality, combined with the parasitic influence of Korea's monarchy and the Yangban that had successfully kept Korea down for centuries.

I'll even go as far as to say that had it not been for Japan's assistance in getting rid of the blood-sucking Korean "royal" family and Japan's subsequent 1910-45 annexation of Korea, Korea could've never benefitted from the U.S. assistance and become what it is today. Also, I try not to ever compare Korea with Japan, because I realize that had it not been for Japan's and the U.S's heavy-handed and inequitable early dealings with Korea, Korea would probably be in the exact same place today that it was 100 years ago.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Korean Royalty thought the Chinese had the right answer to the foriegn threat–total isolation.
Personal opinion, I think the thought of the change opening the country and modernization would bring about was too much for the conservative rulers to contemplate.