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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 6 May 2026: 50 Years Low and Slow

Above we see the class-leading shallow-draft, single-masted armored sloop USS Wilmington (Gunboat No. 8) in Boston Harbor for a naval parade on 2 September 1898, just after the SpanAm War. Note her array of 4″/40 guns, including two forward behind shields, two aft, and two in her portside casemates.

Basically a low-horsepower light cruiser, Wilmington went on to have an amazingly long service life.

Steel Navy’s early gunboats

The first steel-hulled steam warship that was (eventually) rated as a gunboat was the 1,400-ton 16-knot dispatch vessel USS Dolphin, which was authorized by the New Navy Act of 1883. Carrying a three-masted schooner rig, later reduced to two masts, she carried a single 6-inch gun on a 255-foot hull.

Then in 1889 came the trio of Yorktown class boats (PG 1, 3-4), which went 1,900 tons and carried six 6-inchers. They also had an armored conning tower, clad in two inches of nickel steel.

USS Petrel (PG-2) was a smaller boat, just 867 tons, armed with four 6-inchers and capable of just 11 knots.

USS Bancroft (PG 4 1/2, not kidding) mimicked Petrel but mounted four-inch guns and could gin up 14 knots plus, as a bonus, carried two torpedo tubes.

Bath Iron Works in Maine in 1893 built the twin 15-knot gunboats USS Machias (PG-5) and Castine (PG-6), which went 1,310 tons and 203 feet overall, while mounting eight 4-inchers. These boats carried armor, two inches of it, protecting their casemates. This left them with a 15-foot draft.

The Newport News-built USS Nashville (Gunboat No. 7), at 1,300 tons and 233 feet, was good for 16 knots on a 2,530shp plant and, like the Machias twins, carried eight 4-inch guns while the casemate armor had been upped to 2.5 inches. She was awarded on 22 January 1894 in Newport News’s first Navy contract, and was laid down as Yard No. 7 on 9 August 1894.

This sets the stage for our subject.

Meet Wilmington

Wilmington, the only commissioned U.S. Navy warship named for the Delaware city, was ordered specifically to be a shallow draft gunboat, capable of floating in nine feet of water. Running 250 feet overall with a plow bow, she was a beamy girl, at 40 feet.

Displacing 1,397 tons standard (1,689 full) she was powered by six single-ended Hohenstein cylindrical coal-fed boilers pushing twin vertical triple expansion engines powering twin screws, and capable of generating 1,988 horsepower, good for 15.5 knots (light, 13.2 full). While her normal load was 100 tons, when her bunkers were packed with 277 tons, she had a 5,500nm range at 10 knots

Her main battery consisted of eight single 4″/40 Mark III mounts, the yankee version of the 4″/40 (10.2 cm) QF Mark XI, which was staple when it came to U.S. gunboats from PG-5 through PG-35, as well as secondary batteries on the Iowa (B-4), Puritan (M-1), Columbia (C-12) and New York (ACR-2) classes. Designed to deliver 8-9 rounds per minute, well-trained American crews in the war with Spain found themselves able to pump out as many as 15 rounds per minute when needed in battle.

Her secondary armament consisted of six 57mm/50 6-pounder Driggs-Schroeder Mk II anti-boat guns and two 37mm/40 Driggs-Schroeder heavy Mk I 1-pounders.

A pair of Colt Gatling guns and a 3-inch field gun were also issued with the intention that they could be dismounted for service ashore. Speaking of which, it was expected that her 175-man crew could provide a reinforced two-platoon (70-man) landing force if called upon, with rifles and marching kit stocked aboard if needed.

Her armor plan included a watertight deck with 3/8″ armor on the slopes and 5/16″ on the flats. In addition, her conning tower, casemates, and machinery spaces had a 1-inch belt while she had shields for her deck-mounted 4-inchers.

Our girl was ordered for $280,000, laid down at Newport News as Yard No. 8 on 8 October 1894, just two months behind Nashville, and the two very different gunboats were built side-by-side.

Wilmington would commission on 13 May 1897.

Her first skipper was CDR Chapman Coleman Todd (USNA 1866), late from his post as the Ordnance Officer, Navy Yard, Norfolk. The son of Kentucky steamboat captain, Franklin County sheriff, state legislator, and state penitentiary warden Harry Innes Todd, the younger Todd secured his appointment to Annapolis from Governor John J. Crittenden at age 13 during the Civil War.  He would prove a man of action.

Newport News would build one sister to Wilmington, USS Helena (PG-9), which commissioned on 8 July 1897.

Wilmington conducted sea trials and underwent training off the east coast, and joined the South Atlantic Squadron at Key West.

War (her first)

At the beginning of 1898, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet was split into Northern and South Squadrons with all of the country’s battleships (except USS Oregon), armored cruisers, and monitors (save for Monadnock and Monterey). The South Atlantic Squadron, consisting of the cruiser USS Cincinnati and the gunboats Castine and Wilmington, was meanwhile detailed to cruising north along the coast of South America. Meanwhile, Wilmington’s sister, Helena, was detailed to the two-ship European Squadron along with the Bancroft, lounging at Lisbon.

On 21 April 1898, two months after the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor, Cuba, the United States declared war on Spain.

The blockade began in earnest on the morning of 23 April with USS Puritan, Marblehead, Cincinnati, Wilmington, Foote, and the Revenue Cutter Winslow ordered to the eastward of Havana to blockade Matanzas and Cardenas, and to patrol the coast between the latter and Havana.

On 4 May, the tug Leyden, with Captain J. H. Dorst, of the U.S. Army, aboard, landed ammunition for the Cuban insurgents near Mariel. Spanish cavalry that attempted to prevent Captain Dorst’s plucky landing were dispersed by a few 4-inch shells from the Wilmington. The next day, Wilmington, along with Newport and the USRC Morrill, captured the French steamer Lafayette while off Havana with a cargo of provisions and 161 passengers.

On 11 May, Todd was made a defato commodore and given a little flotilla including the schooner-rigged gunboat USS Machias (PG-5), the torpedo boats Winslow and Foote, and the armed Revenue Service tug Hudson, tasked with destroying the Spanish gunboats sheltering at Cardenas and bombarding any troops found inside the sheltered bay.

Machias, drawing 15 feet, remained outside Cardenas due to her greater draft, and destroyed the signal station of Cayo Diana, while Wilmington, Foote, and Winslow entered the bay, amidst a dense fog and haze, hoping to make short work of the much inferior Spanish squadron. Hudson held back to tow any prizes.

Opposing the American force was a pair of small 42-ton cañoneras, Ligera and Alerta, armed with a single 42mm Nordenfelt and a 37mm Maxim. The problem was, Ligera was already disbled with a shot through her boiler in a 25 April engagement with Foote. They were augmented by the armed Trasatlántica-company 68-ton tugboat (remolcador) Antonio Lopez, which had been pressed into service, as well as shore batteries.

With the cañoneras hugging the shallows, the heavier Lopez was forced to stand just off the wharf and fight– and she did– taking the leading American warship, Winslow, under fire, beginning an 80-minute artillery duel.

While the Spanish Navy got a bad rap when it comes to remembering the war of 1898, they made a good showing at Cardenas with the little Antonio Lopez taking at least 12 hits from Winslow’s 1-pounder popgun, and in turn fired 135 shells with her single 57mm 6-pounder, riddling Winslow and keeping up her fire until her magazine was empty. Dead in the water and with her XO, Ensign Worth Bagley, and five enlisted killed and her skipper wounded, Winslow had to be towed to safety by Hudson.

The engagement only ended, via DANFS, when “Wilmington and Hudson brought their guns to bear on the Spanish ship and shore batteries, and the combined fire of the three American warships put the Spanish gunboat out of action and caused the shore batteries to slacken fire.”

Todd, who wrote a chapter about the battle (The Affair at Cardenas) for the book, With Sampson Through the War, noted the results of the battle:

The amount of damage from the guns of the three American vessels engaged could not be determined at the time, apart from the burning of two or three buildings near the location of the gunboats; but a few days later there came on board a Cuban pacifico, who was in Cardenas at the time of the engagement, and who visited the locality where the gunboats were lying the day following the engagement.

He brought the information that both of the large gunboats were riddled and practically destroyed. They could not sink, as they were lying in only six feet of water. This information was undoubtedly correct.

The net results of this attack on Cardenas may be stated as:

1st. The destruction of two Spanish gunboats.

2d. It was the first severe blow struck, which had a great effect upon the swarms of Spanish gunboats surrounding the island of Cuba, rendering their attacks by night much less probable, as shown by experience.

3d. It made feasible the anchorage at Piedras lighthouse for coaling purposes, and it was so used.

4th. It made the Spaniards feel they were not free from attack even though the channels were mined, and forever destroyed their sense of security, no matter how well defended they might be. They now knew that American ships-of-war would take and hold the offensive during the war.

5th. Here was made evident the great advantage of smokeless powder over the ordinary brown powder used by the American ships. The only gun used by the Spaniards, burning brown powder, was the one that fired from the bow of the gunboat moored bows out at the wharf. The others, including field guns observed on the shore and the machine guns on both gunboats, used only smokeless powder, thus making a very poor target for a vessel surrounded, as were the American ships, by clouds of overhanging smoke.

According to Spanish sources, the American bombardment of Cárdenas on 11 May destroyed the English consulate, warehouses, and several houses and buildings, resulting in two fatalities: a volunteer militiaman and a civilian– while a sergeant and seven soldiers were wounded.

Wilmington continued on her blockade service, was credited with seizing two other Spanish ships, dragged for and cut the telegraph line from Santa Cruz and Jucaro, and, oh, yeah, took part in a second, much more successful raid on a Cuban port, Manzanillo (about 80 miles from Santiago, on the south coast of the island), to destroy shipping.

The raid would be led by Wilmington/Todd, joined by sistership Helena, a collection of armed yachts (Hist, Scorpion, Hornet, and Osceola), and the tug Wompatuck (YT-27).

As detailed by DANFS, the Manzanillo raid was textbook:

Accordingly, at 3:00 a.m. on 18 July 1898, the American ships set out from Guayabal and set course for Manzanillo. At 6:45 a.m., the group split up according to plan: Wilmington and Helena made for the north channel; Hist, Hornet, and Wompatuck for the south; Scorpion and Osceola for the central harbor entrance. Fifteen minutes later, the two largest ships entered the harbor with black smoke billowing from their tall funnels and gunners ready at their weapons.

Taking particular care not to damage the city beyond the waterfront, the U.S. gunners directed their gunfire solely at the Spanish ships and took a heavy toll of the steamers congregated there. Spanish supply steamer Purissima Concepcion caught fire alongside a dock and sank at her moorings; gunboat Maria Ponton blew up when her magazines exploded; gunboats Estrella and Delgado Perrado also burned and sank while two transports, Gloria and Jose Garcia, went down as well. Two small gunboats, Guantanamo and Guardian, were driven ashore and shot to pieces.

Beyond the effective range of Spanish shore batteries, the Americans emerged unscathed, leaving columns of smoke to mark the pyres of the enemy’s supply and patrol vessels. The twenty-minute engagement ended with the attackers withdrawing to sea to resume routine patrol duties with the North Atlantic Squadron for the duration of hostilities.

American sources list between eight and nine (five gunboats, three merchant vessels, and one pontoon) successfully destroyed at Manzanillo without suffering any losses, while the NYT that week ran the story, citing at least seven.

Spanish personnel losses were negligible for the raid, typically referred to as the Third Battle of Manzanillo, as the vessels were largely abandoned due to the Americans having superior range, with Spanamwar.com noting, “The casualties among the Spanish squadron were a wounded boatswain, and the garrison suffered two dead and five wounded, and one wounded civilian.”

The war ended just 24 days later in an armistice.

Our gunboat headed home and was drydocked at Boston for repairs and peacetime overseas service.

Her crew was eligible for the Sampson (West Indies Naval Campaign) Medal with “Wilmington” and “Manzanillo” bars, authorized by Congress in 1901.

Following repairs, the ship departed the Massachusetts coast on 20 October bound for the reestablished South Atlantic Squadron.

Roaming

Wilmington was then sent some 150 miles up Venezuela’s Orinoco River in January 1899 from Barrancas to Ciudad Bolivar, followed by an impressive 1,800-mile trip up the Amazon across the South American continent from Pernambuco, Brazil, to Iquitos, Peru, into May.

The 32-page report prepared by CDR Chapman C. Todd makes for interesting reading, especially when the extensive photos of the trip (taken by one hired professional shutterbug, Mr. F.S. Bassett) are taken into account.

Talk about a time capsule!

Todd even used unit funds to create cages for living animals collected from the region, with the ship’s doc, Passed Asst. Surgeon Frank Clarendon Cook, responsible for their care. From the report:

In his report to the State Department, Loomis stated that the Wilmington had made a “strong and agreeable impression wherever she went in Venezuela and, as a result of the trip, American prestige has been substantially and handsomely augmented.”

Wilmington would remain on South American station until October 1900, when, in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion and Japanese-European encroachment in Manchuria, she was ordered to China service. She arrived in Manila on 21 January 1901 after a three-month voyage via Gibraltar, the Suez, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean, and for the next 21 years remained in Asiatic waters, alternating between the Philippines and China.

As detailed by DANFS:

Ordinary activities included the usual calls and port visits to such places as Hong Kong, Canton, and Swatow. She conducted target practice after constructing her own target rafts and laying out a firing area. On one occasion, Chinese fishermen decided that the raft presented a good perch from which to carry out their piscatorial pursuits. Repeated attempts by the gunboaters to shoo away the fishermen only ended in frustration. Finally, as the ship steamed slowly toward the area, she fired a few blank rounds purposely “over,” and the squatters promptly abandoned their erstwhile fishing vantage point.

War (again)

Stationed in the Western Pacific during the Great War, Wilmington in 1914 had her secondary battery of 6-pounders, 1-pounders, and Gatling guns replaced with four 47/40-45 Driggs-Schroeder Mk II 3-pounders and a pair of Colt Model 1895 .30-06 machine guns.

In Shanghai, when Congress declared war in April 1917, the Chinese government ordered all U.S. ships to leave in 48 hours or be interned. This left Wilmington on patrol of the Philippines for the duration.

Great Lake Days

Returning to the U.S. for the first time since 1899, Wilmington arrived at Portsmouth on 20 September 1922 after a 15-week cruise via Singapore, Colombo, Bombay, Karachi, Aden, Port Said, Gibraltar, and the Azores, with the last leg under tow by USS Sapelo (AO 11) due to the poor state of her engines.

After a refit, which included changing out her legacy boilers for four new Babcock & Wilcox sets, she was reduced to a Naval Reserve training ship, assigned to the Ninth Naval District, for the states of Kentucky and Ohio, based in Toledo. She arrived on Lake Erie via the Soulanges, Cornwall, and Welland Canals on 1 August 1923.

She would spend the next 18 years in a quiet existence of winter layups and summer training cruises with her assorted reservists, with her deck guns removed to keep from violating the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 with Canada. Her NRF bluejackets could still drill with small arms and practice stands, seen below.

During this same period, sister Helena, on Asiatic Station since February 1899, was decommissioned there in 1932 and sold for scrap.

(Yet another) War

As the U.S. edged towards its second world war in just 21 years, the old gunboat Wilmington was *redesignated USS Dover (IX-30) on 27 January 1941, and soon got involved in neutrality patrol, rearmed for the first time in 18 years.

*The renaming came as the Navy intended to upcycle the name “Wilmington” to a planned Cleveland-class light cruiser, CL-79, which ultimately entered service as the Independence-class light aircraft carrier USS Cabot (CVL-28). Nonetheless, the Navy did use “Wilmington” for a planned Fargo class, USS Wilmington (CL-111), which was laid down in March 1945, but was suspended in August and later scrapped.

Sporting a single 5″/38 over her stern, our old Wilmington/Dover even clocked in on convoy duty, escorting the five merchant ships and one auxiliary (the 11,000-ton USS Antares (AG-10)) of  HF-24 from Halifax to Boston over Christmas 1942, with 106 men embarked as her crew, sailing under the command of LT Raymond George Brown, USNR.

Sailing via New York and Miami, Wilmington/Dover arrived in Gulfport, Mississippi, on 3 February 1943 to serve the Eighth Naval District as an Armed Guard training ship, moored along with the 187-foot circa 1914 patrol yacht USS Lash (PYc 31), the 183-foot Kil class gunboat USCGC Marita (WYP-175), and the old 261-foot armed freighter USCGC Monomoy (WAG-275).

Besides training Armed Guards at a rate of 585 per week, the ships also served as “floating laboratories for the students in the Basic Engineering School.”

Wilmington/Dover would remain there until 27 November 1944, the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend, when she was sent to Alabama Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Pinto Island in Mobile Bay for two weeks of refurbishment to allow her to transfer to Treasure Island, California, upon the pending disestablishment of the Gulfport Armed Guard base.

She arrived at her last homeport via the Panama Canal on New Year’s Day 1945, LT William Louis Hardy, USNR, in command.

In just her limited time at Treasure Island, Wilmington/Dover gave refresher gunnery training to 84 officers and 3,370 enlisted men in the San Francisco area during 1945.

She was finally decommissioned on 20 December 1945.

Stricken from the Navy List on 8 January 1946, Wilmington/Dover was sold for scrap on 30 December 1946 to the San Francisco Barge Company, and sunk at sea in early 1947.

Epilogue

Little remains of our subject.

Wilmington’s first skipper, CDR Chapman Todd, who commanded her during the SpanAm War and her trips across the rivers of South America, went on to serve as hydrographer of the Navy Department, where he supervised the initial survey of the newly acquired U.S. territories of the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Promoted to captain in 1901, he commanded the cruiser USS Brooklyn on Asiatic station during the Philippine insurrection. He retired from active service in October 1902 with the rank of rear admiral after a naval career that spanned 41 years, counting his time at Annapolis.

RADM Todd passed away in April 1929 at the Naval Hospital in Washington, aged 80, and was buried in Kentucky. At the time of his passing, his son, CDR Chapman Todd, Jr. (USNA 1913), was an officer on the battlewagon USS Florida (BB-30) who would go on to serve in WWII. Besides the two scrapbooks whose images are in the Naval History and Heritage Command’s files, many of which are seen in the above article, the senior Todd’s 1870 Lieutenant’s commission, signed by President Grant, is in the Kentucky state archives– along with his Civil War dress epaulettes. 

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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