Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger
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Warship Wednesday 13 May 2026: Unexpected Blockade Enforcer
Photo from the collection of Rosalie and Bascom Grooms, Sr., courtesy of Florida Keys Public Libraries
Above, we see the U.S. Lighthouse Service Tender Mangrove around 1897, when she entered service.
Though not built with military service in mind, Mangrove would serve in three wars under Navy orders, including one where she fired the last shot and captured one of the largest enemy prizes.
Background on the Lighthouse Service’s steel tenders
The foundations of the Lighthouse Service, also known as the U.S. Light-House Board, were advanced by a Congress whose Senate was headed by John Adams and approved by President Washington on 7 August 1789.
While not a military branch, Navy officers often filled many roles in the organization, and its men and tenders clocked in for the greater good during times of war. For instance, during the War of 1812, the keeper of the lighthouse at Havre de Grace, Maryland, is reported to have defended that town from an attack by the enemy.
The USLHT Van Santvoort was transferred to the Union Navy in 1861 and served as the gunboat USS Coeur de Lion during the Civil War, while USLHT Shubrick— which carried several small guns in order to protect light keepers and citizens from Indian attacks on the Oregon coast– transferred to the Revenue Cutter Service. Famously, the service’s head in 1860 was one CDR Raphael Semmes, USN, soon to be captain of the CSS Alabama, while at least five USLHTs were seized in Southern states, with most pressed into service with the CSN.
At the end of FY1893, the USLHS had 1,312 lighthouses and beacon lights, 419 day beacons, 1,751 post lights, 4,315 assorted buoys in position, 39 lightships, and 32 tenders to service them, including two sail and 30 steam, the latter often with auxiliary sail rigs. Staffed by 1,139 lightkeepers, 1,503 laborers, and 821 “other employees, including crews of lightships and tenders,” the service was spread thin across 16 coastal districts as well as several large inland river systems. All this was paid for by an outlay of $2,558,500, with the largest expense ($670,000) being that of lightkeeper salaries. Vessel and crew expenses for tenders came in at a paltry $250,000, or about one tenth of the overall budget.
The 1893 period saw the USLHS add two new large steel-hulled sea-going steam tenders, the 800-ton/164-foot Maple, built for $93,888 in New Jersey for use with the 5th LH District out of Baltimore, and the $92,125 Ohio-built Columbine (643-tons/155-foot oal), for the 13th LH District in Oregon. Columbine’s twin sister Lilac had been delivered the year prior.
US. Lighthouse Tender Columbine, steaming, at 15 knots, Columbia River, May 10, 1894. She later served in the Navy twice during wartime, was in commission for over 32 years, and steamed a total of 400,920 miles. Courtesy of Rear Admiral A. Farenholt, (MC), USN. NH 55298
Lighthouse Board plan for Lilac and Columbine
Other modern tenders delivered in the years prior included the Madrono (1885) and the Armeria (1890), both of similar 164-foot designs.
Tender Madrono, 164-foot USLHS tender commissioned 1885
Complete with compound steam engines, Scotch-type boilers, twin propellers, and a deck that featured a wooden derrick with a steam-powered winch, these were a new breed of general-purpose vessels and had a general layout that the service would stick with for the next forty years. They proved capable of supplying fuel, mail, and materials to remote lighthouses; transporting work crews and equipment up and down the coastline, towing lightships, and setting even the heaviest of buoys. Further, they typically proved to be excellent sea boats while still being able to operate in shallows as low as nine feet.
This sets the stage for our subject.
Meet Mangrove
A steam tender of the new sea-going type was approved in FY1896 to service the 7th Lighthouse District (from Miami to Mobile Bay) and the 8th (Mobile Bay to the Rio Grande). The contract was awarded to Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey, and construction began. The final $37,500 of the tender’s $74,997.63 cost was appropriated on 4 June 1897 by the sundry civil appropriation act.
She was to be 164 feet overall with a 30-foot beam and draw just over eight feet under her hull with a standard 821-ton displacement. Rated for 10 knots, she had two Page Burton watertube coal-fired boilers and two compound inverted reciprocating steam engines driving two four-bladed props.
Among her outfit was a hydraulic hoisting winch, a new piece of equipment for the service, and a naphtha “alchol-vapor” powered launch acquired from the Valor Engine Company for $1,371.90.
The new tender, the first to be named Mangrove in the LHS standard “tree” naming convention, was launched on 26 June 1897, sponsored by Miss Mabel Snow, wife of CDR (later RADM) Albert Sidney Snow, USN. A veteran of the Civil War and 1871 Korean expedition, Snow, at the time, was holding the post of Inspector for the 3rd Lighthouse District.
A near sister, the 164-foot USLHT Mayflower, was completed at Bath Iron Works at the same time.
Mangrove was commissioned on 1 December 1897 and assigned to Key West. Arriving aboard Mangrove was a new skipper, Captain Phillip Louis Cosgrove, Sr., a Key West fixture who had been with the USLHS since 1873 and was pretty salty at age 64, having previously commanded the tenders Arbutus and Laurel for many years.
Leaving Tompkinsville, New York, on 27 December 1897, Mangrove arrived at her new home in Key West on 8 January and soon got to work establishing new buoys in the Dry Tortugas. In the first quarter of 1898, she steamed 2,634 nm on USLHS missions, burning some 404 tons of coal in the process. In that time, her crew cleaned and painted 115 buoys, changed 83, and worked three days at the district’s light house depot.
On the evening of 15 February 1898, the battleship USS Maine sank while at anchor in Havana following a terrific explosion, and Mangrove, just heading into her fifth week on station at Key West, was the closest and most prepared American vessel to the stricken warship.
Mangrove, with Captain Clendenin, Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army, and his hospital steward aboard, left for Havana from Key West immediately at 0300 on 16 February under the orders of CDR James M. Forsyth, commander at the naval station there, followed by the 160-foot gunboat USS Fern (which, ironically, was a former USLHST).
Arriving on scene the next morning, Mangrove loaded the Maine’s 60 wounded survivors for return to the United States. A second sortie from Key West to Havana and back soon after would carry salvaged guns and evacuated U.S. civilians from Cuba.
USS Maine, sunk in Havana Harbor, Feb. 15, 1898
Refugees from Havana brought by Mangrove to Fort Taylor in Key West, along with the original graves of the lost Maine crew
A court of inquiry was held in Mangrove’s salon to try to ascertain the cause of the destruction of the Maine. With much of the inquiry held in Havana over the first two weeks of March, Mangrove’s searchlights were in continuous use each night, assisting divers and other activities as the Navy officers made their home on the humble tender.
USS Maine Court of Inquiry, 1898. Members of the Navy Court of Inquiry examining Ensign Wilfrid V. Powelson, on board the U.S. Light House Tender Mangrove, in Havana Harbor, Cuba, circa March 1898. Those seated around the table include (from left to right): Captain French E. Chadwick, Captain William T. Sampson, Lieutenant Commander William P. Potter, Ensign W.V. Powelson, and Lieutenant Commander Adolph Marix. “The Court made a most patient, thorough, and searching investigation into all matters pertaining to the destruction of the Maine, examining the wreck in detail, above and below the water line, with the assistance of expert Naval Constructors and divers, and examining all witnesses whose testimony promised to throw light, in the faintest degree, on the subject.” NH 46764
After meeting on Mangrove for 18 days of hearings, the Court shifted to the more regal and accommodating battleship USS Iowa, newly arrived at Key West from Hampton Roads, from whose deck it released its report on 21 March, stating they felt Maine had been destroyed by a submarine mine of unknown origin.
On 10 April, Mangrove was transferred to the Navy Department and retained her name but became USS rather than USLHST. Mangrove received a new, more warlike skipper, LCDR William Henry Everett (USNA 1867), borrowed from the old gunboat USS Michigan, along with a quick coat of grey paint, two 6-pounder guns, and a 1-pounder. Everett also had a young ensign assigned to him, one John H. Dayton, and an even younger midshipman– one of 123 such cadets pulled from class and rushed from Annapolis to help flesh out the ranks for the war. Ole Phil Cosgrove remained on board as first mate and sailed to war as such.
Additionally, Mangrove was fitted with cable repair and grappling tackle with the idea that she would be useful in cutting the telegraph lines around Cuba and Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, her 30-man crew would get on-the-job training as instant bluejackets, sans crackerjacks.
War (her first)
On 21 April 1898, two months after the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana and 11 days after Mangrove transferred to the Navy, the United States declared war on Spain.
The blockade began in earnest on the morning of 23 April, with Mangrove reporting to Capt. Henry Clay Taylor of the battleship USS Indiana, which also had the armed tug USS Algonquin in retainer.
After helping to cut the submarine cable out of Havana on the evening of 25 April, Taylor ordered Mangrove North to Key West on a mail run, then sped Indiana south toward RADM Sampson’s flagship, USS New York. At around 5:25 p.m., Mangrove spotted a large ship approaching Havana. It turned out to be the Trasatlántica company liner, SS Panama (2,080 GRT), en route from New York to Havana, Progresso, and Vera Cruz, carrying 29 mostly Spanish passengers, mail, and general cargo.
Caught on the high seas, Panama was prepared for service as an auxiliary cruiser should war come, carrying a pair of 18-pounders (Hontroia 90mm guns, with 30 shells for each) as well as a Maxim gun on the bridge, two signal guns, 20 Remington rolling block rifles, and 10 Mauser bolt action rifles, all with ammunition, as well as a companion supply of bayonets and swords. Further, Panama was capable of 12 knots while Mangrove was closer to 8.5 at her overloaded condition, meaning even if she didn’t want to fight, the Spaniard could have simply outrun the armed tender.
After firing three shots across the bow, Mangrove was able to get the Panama to heave to for boarding at a range of 4,800 yards, with the intrepid Ensign Dayton rowed across for the task as the sole member of a VBSS team.
Everett had put in a requisition for a crate of rifles, along with a box of revolvers, with proper belts, cartridges, bayonets, etc., and it had been duly approved and forwarded, but the arms never made it to Mangrove. In the morning, she encountered Panama, the only weapons to be found among the crew included one revolver– the private property of the cadet midshipman– and the dress swords of the three officers. In fact, the crew who manned the cutter to put the boarding officer on the Panama (the Ensign Dayton) rowed over in their civilian dungarees as no Navy uniforms had arrived either.
Nonetheless, Mr. Dayton came aboard to the shrieks of female passengers, went to the bridge, advised the Spanish captain his elegant vessel was a prize, war having been declared between the United States and Spain, and he acquiesced.
Simple as that.
The NYT on the capture:
As Mangrove couldn’t spare the manpower, Indiana, which had closed on the scene, supplied 15 Marines and an Annapolis Cadet (Walter Maxwell Falconer, one of 13 Mids on the battleship) as prize crew while the tender escorted Panama to Key West.
Panama was later sold at public auction by the U.S. Marshal in New York on 20 June, with the U.S. Government being the high bidder at $41,000 (vessel only, her cargo garnered another $14,523.12). This was one of the highest prices realized from among the more than 50 captured Spanish vessels sold during the war, eclipsed only by the fine steamers Rita, which was bought by the Army for $120,000, the Guido, which went for $130,000, and the Pedro, which was sold to the U.S. Navy for $200,000. The Army went on to use her as a livestock transport.
After bringing Panama as a trophy to Key West, Mangrove returned to Cuban waters, serving as a dispatch vessel for Admiral Sampson and in general blockade duties.
Mangrove seen with torpedo boat USS Ericson 2024.01.0014
Mangrove helped seize the small Spanish schooner Oriente on 2 May, along with the tug USS Tecumseh and gunboat Vicksburg.
On 7 June, LCDR Everett was dispatched to the Asiatic Squadron to join Dewey’s staff and replaced on Mangrove by another Navy regular, LCDR Daniel Delehanty Vincent Stuart (USNA 1869). The tender-turned-gunboat also landed her loaned cadet midshipman (presumably with his celebrated pistol!), in exchange for Ensign Charles A. Brand (USNA 1890), who had been sent down from detached service on the survey schooner USC&GSS Endeavor.
On July 22, Mangrove captured her third prize, the Spanish sloop Anguedita, singlehandedly, and duly convoyed said vessel to Key West.
Ordered in early August to support the Cuban expedition aboard the schooners Dellie and Ellen F. Adams at Cayo Francés in Buena Vista Bay on the north-central coast of Cuba, Mangrove stood picket near Caibarien to spoil any attacks on the beachhead by a collection of Spanish gunboats known to be sheltering there. Chief of these was Hernand Cortés, commanded by LCDR (teniente de navío de 1.ª clase) Angel Izquierdo Pozo, and three small launches, Cauto, Viliente, and Intrepida, the latter armed with 1 pounders. The Spanish mosquito boat flotilla had previously sortied out and engaged U.S. blockaders twice before, on May 10th and 18th.
A fine Clydebank-built Pizarro-class gunboat (canonero), Hernan Cortes was a brand-new 300-tonner equipped with 57mm Nordenfelts and designed to intercept filibuster expeditions. Capable of 13 knots, the stiletto-hulled 155-foot patrol boat had a 50-man crew. All the above should have more than made her a match for a gently armed buoy tender.
Should have.
Spanish gunboat (canonero) Hernan Cortes, probably photographed early in 1896 while undergoing trials at the Builder’s Yard, Clydebank, Scotland. Note the two single Nordenfelt 75mm guns mounted fore and aft. These were replaced before 1898 by two smaller 57mm guns and two 7mm Maxim guns. NH 88600
On the morning of 14 August, some 3 miles east of Caibarien at approximately 10:55 a.m., Mangrove’s crew spotted a large Spanish gunboat and opened fire with her port-side 6-pounder gun, slowly gaining range. Cortes retaliated, and for the next 90 minutes, a long-range artillery duel continued, with Cortes largely stationary and the three smaller Spanish launches, armed with short-range 1-pounders, also returned fire as Mangrove alternated passing gun runs on her port and starboard sides.
Breaking contact around 12:30, the small Spanish launch Cauto soon approached with a white flag aloft and advised the garrison had just been informed by wire that the hostilities between Spain and America had ceased the day prior, leaving Mangrove with the distinction of firing the last war shots of the conflict. In all, the tender fired 103 rounds from her 6-pounders and three from her 1-pounder. According to most reports, at least four of the larger shells found themselves in the engine room of the Cortes, explaining the vessel’s stationary position for most of the engagement.
According to a dispatch published in the Army & Navy Journal, Mangrove bombarded the town as well, letting loose some 87 shots at the fort and village.
With that, Mangrove’s war service ended.
Similarly, the lighthouse tenders Armeria, Maple, and Mayflower were also taken into Naval service for the duration of the conflict, though none saw the combat and success that Mangrove did.
The closest was Mayflower, which, as USS Suwanee, was given a much bigger battery than Mangrove and provided gunfire support for Marines engaged in consolidating the American position at Guantanamo Bay in June 1898 and again for the Army troops advancing on Aguadores in July.
USLHT Mayflower in 1898 at Norfolk Navy Yard, complete with service insignia on her bow. Note she has twin 6-pounders fore and aft, as well as two 3″/50s.
The United States Navy auxiliary cruiser USS Suwanee (ex-United States Lighthouse Service lighthouse tender USLHT Mayflower) (center) underway off Siboney, Cuba. The troop transports USS St. Louis is at left, and the patrol yacht USS Vixen is at right. NH 85649
The most enduring change that came to the USLHS during the War of ’98 was the temporary militarization of 78 lighthouses for use as coast watching stations. This saw 92 miles of land telegraph and telephone lines laid, along with 43 miles of submarine cables, to establish round-the-clock contact with these often-remote locations. Further, each keeper was provided with a set of first-class binoculars, signal flags, and code books.
Mangrove was cited by the Navy Department for “Conspicuous Service” during the war, while her crew was authorized the Naval Campaign West Indies (Sampson) Medal in 1901 with “Mangrove” ribbon clasp.
They ultimately split the prize money for Panama in 1903 after lengthy legal efforts to successfully exclude the much larger crew of the battleship Indiana, with the Supreme Court noting, “The adventure of the Mangrove may not have been a brilliant event that will live in story, but it was sufficient to give its officers and crew the profit of the law.”
She was returned to the Lighthouse Service on 18 August 1898 and remained moored at Key West’s Man-of-War Harbor until 19 October 1898 to land her guns and military equipment. She was then sent to Mobile for drydocking and repairs– including replacing the port propeller plate whose edge had been shot off by one of Cortes’s guns at Caibarien, her only wartime damage.
Leaving Mobile on 15 December 1898 with a refreshed USLHS livery, she resumed her post serving in the 7th LH District.
Back to the Lighthouse Trade
One of Mangrove’s first post-war assignments was, somewhat appropriately, heading to Havana in March 1899 to relieve and reset all channel and harbor boys. She also planted buoys to mark the wreck of USS Maine.
She remained a busy beaver. For instance, the Annual Report of the Light-House Board of the United States to the Secretary of the Commerce Department details that, for FY1901, Mangrove cleaned and painted 79 buoys, worked 25 days at the depot, and steamed 8,722 nm, burning 1,038 tons of bituminous coal in the process.
She was also an angel on the sea and a savior to those in peril upon it, repeatedly.
In September 1900, Mangrove was ordered from Key West along with the Revenue Cutters Algonquin, Onondaga, and Winona to bring 25 tons of provisions and medical supplies across the Gulf to Galveston, which had been hit by the worst hurricane to ever make landfall in the U.S., claiming the lives of more than 10,000. The crews of the relief vessels pitched in where they could in the massive cleanup effort.
From 14 July 1906 to 25 April 1907, Mangrove was under overhaul and repair at the League Island Navy Yard.
In October 1909, Mangrove rendered assistance for several days to the U. S. Revenue Cutter Forward, stranded by a hurricane at Key West. She also rendered assistance the following June, to the steamer Lassell, of New York, aground on Carysfort Reef.
In January-February 1911, Mangrove was part of the joint naval task force, including the USRC Forward, the tug USS Massasoit (YT-15), and four destroyers, lining the 90 miles from Key West to Havana for the attempt by Canadian aviation pioneer John Alexander Douglas McCurdy to make the trip in his Curtiss flying machine. Keep in mind, this was only a bit over seven years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight.
J.A. McCurdy before his flight on February 7, 1911. Monroe County Library Collection.
The flight was unsuccessful, and the aviator had to be rescued from the Florida Straits by the nearest support ship, USS Terry (DD-25), just within sight of the Cuban coast.
The Navy crews from USS Terry recovered McCurdy’s plane after his failed attempt to fly from Key West to Havana on January 30, 1911. Gift of Senator Warren Henderson.
On 12 February 1912, our tender picked up the dismasted American schooner Otis about 2.5 miles from Rebecca Shoal light station, Florida, and towed the vessel to Key West. The same year saw Mangrove commended for hauling the British steamer Antaeus off French Reef, and assisting the stranded schooner Igo.
Mangrove spent much of 1913 in overhaul, with most of her officers and crew cross-decked to man the near-sister Lilac, which had just emerged from overhaul sans crew.
The same year, she picked up her sixth skipper, Capt. Ernest O. Tull. Tull entered the Lighthouse Service in 1889 in the Fifth district and served during the SpanAm War on Mayflower/Suwanee. In 1912, while first officer on the tender Orchid, Tull jumped into the water and rescued an unconscious member of the crew of that vessel, who was knocked overboard as the result of an accident to the derrick. He would become a staple of Mangrove’s history for the next 13 years.
On 7 February 1915, Mangrove would rescue the crew of the wrecked schooner William H. Yerkes, which was lost on the Frying Pan Shoals with a cargo of phosphate rock bound for Baltimore. The trusty tender brought the waterlogged crew to Wilmington the next day.
In January 1916, the tender came to the assistance of the submarine USS K-5 (SS-36), which had been out of communication with command. For this, the USLHS and Commerce Department received an official note of thanks from the Navy Department.
Showing how versatile her type was, Mangrove that year also helped move the 51×56 foot keeper’s dwelling of the Georgetown Light Station some 1.25 miles across Winyah Bay– while the keeper’s family remained inside.
War (again)
The Naval Appropriations Act of 29 August 1916 (39 Stat. L., 556, 602) authorized the USLHS to transfer to the Navy and/or War Department in time of emergency as directed by the President. The plan was for the War Department to take some tenders to supplement Army Coast Artillery Corps mine planters for the establishment of minefields outside U.S. ports, while the Navy would absorb others– as well as coastal stations, depots, and lighthouses– for use in patrol work.
Though a civilian agency of a neutral country, the USLHS had already tasted war from the Germans, courtesy of U-53 in October 1916, when the submarine torpedoed three vessels off Nantucket Island, and the Nantucket Shoals Light Vessel sheltered 115 shipwrecked men and 19 lifeboats for several days.
The United States declared war on the Kaiser on 6 April 1917 and just five days later, President Wilson signed Executive Order #2588 activating the provisions of the August 1916 Navy Act, including the transfer of USLHS installations, ships, and personnel to the Navy although the CNO soon made it clear that when it came to actual lighthouses, “that it would be preferable to take over as few as possible.”
Speaking of “as few as possible,” in the end, the War Department felt it didn’t need any lighthouse tenders and allowed the Navy to take over all 50 of the service’s vessels for better or worse.
As detailed by Theodore J. Panayotoff in the November 2011 Lighthouse Digest:
Upon transfer, all officers and crewmembers were inducted into the US Naval Reserve Force (USNRF) with the officers receiving commissions with the rank of LTJG or ENS. Counting the tenders, light stations, and lightships, there were 1,284 Lighthouse Service personnel transferred to the Navy Department, or about ¼ of the Lighthouse Service at the time.
The word went out via Western Union telegram in most cases during the week of 18 April.
This figure later grew to 1,132 LHS personnel, while 152 employees of the service that had not been transferred in turn resigned and joined the Army or Navy directly as volunteers.
On 19 April 1917, Mangrove, Ernest O. Tull commanding, assisted in floating the ship Nevisian.
Again, we fall back to Panayotoff on the role the tenders played in 1917-19 Navy operations:
The tender deck log holdings of the National Archives were reviewed to shed light on what these “military” duties may have been. An interesting discovery was that, based on the few cases where deck log holdings are listed for both the Naval vessel and the Lighthouse Service tender, dual logs were kept on board the vessels. Entries in the Department of Commerce Form 304, the Lighthouse Service deck logbook, were handwritten, and the Navy Department Bureau of Navigation logbook sheets were typewritten. The log entries were word-for-word identical. It is possible that the Lighthouse Service log served as a rough log, and the Navy Department log was the smooth log. The respective organizations retained their logs, signed by the Commanding Officer, USNRF, and Master, USLHS, respectively. Although not every entry of the available logs was read, it appears that the tender activities were all lighthouse-related.
As further explained by the USLHS Annual Report in 1923, looking back on the Great War:
“The naval representatives on an interdepartmental board stated: “The service being performed by these tenders in the various naval districts is extremely valuable. In some cases, they are the main reliance of the district commandants for seagoing vessels; in some instances, the work being performed by these tenders is of a nature for which the Navy has no suitable vessels, for example, the laying of the defensive submarine nets.”
While Mangrove survived her second war without a scratch, not all were so lucky. The Diamond Shoal Light Vessel (LV-71), off Cape Hatteras, was sunk on 6 August 1918 by U-140 after the submarine discovered the light ship was broadcasting warnings of her presence. All 12 of her crew, however, managed to escape by launch as the sub’s deck guns were smashing about their light ship.
All USLHS men who served with the fleet were awarded Victory medals by the Navy Department. In July 1919, all vessels and personnel were retroceded to the Department of Commerce.
Mangrove in the last days of the USLHS
Mangrove, with Tull still commanding, on 20 October 1920, rendered assistance in extinguishing a fire on the gasoline launch of the USS Dixie while in Charleston Harbor.
Our tender affected her biggest rescue in the case of the Clyde Line steamship SS Lenape in October, when the 7,000-ton liner went aground on the Nassau Bar, transferring 247 passengers to another one of the Line’s vessels.
As detailed in the 1922 Lighthouse Service Bulletin:
In 1922, Mangrove was shifted up the Eastern Seaboard and assigned to the 6th Lighthouse District, based out of Charleston, South Carolina, where she operated for the rest of her government career.
On 6 February 1923, Mangrove went to assist the crew of a stranded oyster barge and towed them to a safe anchorage in the Ashepoo River.
While in the thick winter fog along the Savannah River on 3 January 1924, Mangrove came to the assistance of the steamship City of Savannah, which was unable to turn around in the narrow channel.
Capt. Tull medically retired from the USLHS in early 1926, leaving Mangrove after 13 years as Master. A veteran of both the SpanAm War and the Great War, he passed on 29 July 1926 in Charleston, having completed 37 years of service.
(Yet another) War
By the time Mangrove’s third war came around, the 150-year-old USLHS no longer existed, its assets and 5,800 employees having been absorbed by the USCG in July 1939, including all 64 of its assorted tenders. The service’s 1,195 regular tender and lightship crewmen and officers were given a three-option choice: accepting a rank/rate in the uniformed service, retiring if they had enough time in the pension system, or moving on to other endeavors.
In turn, Executive Order 8929 of 1 November 1941 transferred the entire Coast Guard to the Navy for the coming “Big Show” against the Axis. By this time, the 44-year-old Mangrove had picked up a pennant number (WAGL-232), gray paint, and guns. By the end of the war, she carried not only a pair of 20mm Oerlikons and depth charges but also a SO-1 type surface search radar set.
Her fellow SpanAm and Great War veteran near-sister, Mayflower, likewise, served as USCGC Hydrangea (WAGL-236) during WWII to avoid being confused with the Navy’s USS Mayflower.
Mangrove continued naval service as a buoy tender until 1 January 1946, when she was returned to the Treasury Department. Her service during WWII was uneventful, and she decommissioned on 22 August 1946.
Unneeded in a Coast Guard that had 39 brand-new 180-foot Balsam-class seagoing buoy tenders on hand, ex-Mangrove was sold for scrap in March 1947.
Epilogue
A few relics of our subject endure.
The Key West Lighthouse & Keeper’s Quarters Collection holds both Mangrove’s SpanAm War streamer pennant and a Quarantine Flag flown from the tender.
Her 1897-marked bell has also been spotted in circulation.
Of Mangrove’s Caibarien nemesis, Hernan Cortés survived the war and was repaired enough to return home to Spain in the Spring of 1899 in a sad convoy of survivors of the conflict, including her sister, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the cruiser Magallanes y Marqués de la Ensenada, the auxiliary cruisers Patriota and Rapido, torpedo boats (cañoneros-torpederos) Nueva España, Martín Alonso Pinzón, Marqués de la Ensenada, and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. The convoy assembled at Fort de France (Martinique) and sailed on 7 March, arriving at Cadiz on 1 April via El Hierro, a slow running 3,900 miles, with several ships being towed. Shifted to Morocco, Cortes proved especially handy in capturing smugglers and fighting the Rif, remaining in further Spanish service until 1924.
Mangrove’s first skipper, the venerable Capt. Cosgrove, in charge of the lightning response to the stricken Maine and served as Mate during the ’98 War, resigned from the USLHS in 1906, capping a 33-year career. He passed in Key West just six years later, aged 78. Buried on the Key, his home remains and is a noted historic building.
Of Mangrove’s two Navy skippers in the SpanAm War, LCDR Everett, who commanded her during the capture of the steamer Panama, retired from the service as a rear admiral in 1906, completing 43 years in uniform, including his time as a midshipman. He passed away in 1912, aged 65. LCDR Daniel Stuart, who inadvertently ordered the last shots of the war, also retired as a light admiral. Stuart’s decorations, including an exceedingly rare “Mangrove” marked Sampson medal, recently sold at auction for $8,000.
What of the young ensign who confidently took command of Panama in 1898, armed only with a borrowed personal revolver and a dress sword? VADM John Havens Dayton (USNA 1890) retired from the Navy after being an early skipper of the dreadnought USS Arizona, earning a Navy Cross as captain of the battleship USS Michigan in the Great War, and commanding the European Squadron in the 1920s. He passed in 1953, aged 84, and is buried in the cemetery at Annapolis– as you would expect.
Thanks for reading!
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
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