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Warship Wednesday 15 July 2026: El Abuelo

Posted on July 15, 2026 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

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 15 July 2026: El Abuelo

NH-87930

Above we see the Spanish battleship (acorazado) España underway late in her career, circa 1931, firing a salute. Commissioned under a different name, she was the site of a naval mutiny and dockyard siege some 90 years ago this week that would lead to her eventual demise and throw her country into a very dark half-century.

Spanish 20th Century Battleship Needs

The Real Armada had its heart torn out during the war (el Desastre) with America in 1898, with 11 of its fairly modern cruisers (eight protected and three armored) sunk, captured, or otherwise lost in combat operations between Manila and Santiago. The fact was that Madrid had deployed the bulk of its first-class warships overseas to protect its colonies, and both the territories and the vessels were lost.

By 1900, the main line of the Spanish Navy consisted of just five steel-hulled vessels they rated as “battleships.” Of those five, the largest and most formidable was the circa 1887 French-built Pelayo (9,900 tons/330 feet oal, 2×12.6″, 2×11″, 16 knots), which was the only vessel in the Spanish fleet with 12-inch guns, albeit stubby low-angle 12″/35 M1880 Canet models.

German U-boat coming alongside Spanish battleship Pelayo after surrender on Dec 20 1918

The newest of the five were the sisters Cardennal Cisneros, Cataluña, and Princesa de Asturias, which had been built slowly in Spain (too slow to take part in the war of 1898) and, while some 7,000 tons and capable of 20 knots on a 14,800 hp plant, their two-gun 9.4-inch main battery and 5.5-inch secondary made them more underpowered armored cruisers than battleships.

The same can be said of the one-off 9,000-ton Emperador Carlos V, which, while she could make 19 knots and carried a pair of 11-inch guns balanced by eight 5.5-inchers, only had a two-inch armor belt, which again left her as more an armored cruiser, and a slow one at that.

The state of the once proud fleet had become something of a joke by 1904.

Fleet Admiral José Ferrándiz y Niño, in a popular cartoon by Joaquín Moya from 1904 in the Spanish satirical magazine Gedeón depicting Spanish Council of Ministers President Antonio Maura’s reaction to the “formidable squadron” at Viggo, only to be told by Ferrándiz that it was a Russian one (the Baltic Fleet’s 2nd Pacific Squadron under Rozhestvensky headed to Tsushima):

By 1906, with HMS Dreadnought changing the battleship game forever, Spain knew it needed something more, both to display enough muscle to keep its African colonies (Guinea, Rio de Oro, Spanish Morocco, etc.), and contribute something to the growing web of European military alliances. Speaking to the latter, the Pact of Cartagena in May 1907, co-signed with Britain and France, set the stage for Madrid to join its newfound partners in a future theoretical conflict with Germany, Italy, and Austro-Hungary.

And that meant at least a few new battleships.

Which brings us to…

The World’s Tiniest Dreadnoughts

ADM Ferrándiz’s Naval Plan of 1907 sought to build a thoroughly modern fleet that the country could afford, centered on a squadron of new battleships, supported by three new destroyers, 22 torpedo boats, four gunboats, and several auxiliary vessels

It was decided early on that the three new battleships would be constructed domestically by the newly-formed Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval (SECN) in Ferrol, which was in turn majority-owned by the British shipbuilding firms of Vickers, Armstrong Whitworth, and John Brown & Company, with a Garantia Tecnica Comite made up of British executives drawn from said companies.

This led to a very, well, English design, only abbreviated for cost.

Line drawing of Spanish battleship España from her launching book

The overall length was but 459 feet with a 78-foot beam and 26-foot draft. Normal standard displacement was 15,452 tons (16,400 full). While the smallest on record for completed dreadnoughts, not counting such creatures as the WWII-era German “pocket battleships,” they still weren’t as small as one would think.

Their dimensions put the new Spanish ships only about 70 feet shorter and 3,000 tons lighter than HMS Dreadnought herself (18,410 tons std, 527 feet oal), while the American South Carolina-class battleships were on a slightly shorter hull than the Spanish (452 feet oal), just with heavier armor and guns putting them in the 17,900 ton class when fully loaded.

The Spanish ships also compared decently to the period German Nassau-class dreadnoughts (18.700 tons, 479 feet oal) and the Austrian Tegetthoff-class (20,000 tons, 498 feet oal). All ships mentioned in this paragraph carried 11- or 12-inch main guns.

Speaking of guns, the Spanish dreadnoughts would carry a series of unique 30.5 cm/50 (12″) Vickers (VSM) Mark H guns in four twin turrets, arranged en echelon.

12″/50 Spanish naval gun at Vickers Eskmeals Gun Range

Spanish Vickers 12inch 50 España Twin Mounting Layout. Sketch Courtesy of Javier Villarroya del Real, via NNavweaps

Espana’s guns installed

305mm guns Spanish battleship España crew

Espana gunnery tests, June 1914

While decent in performance (they could fire an 850-pound AP shell to 20,000 yards with a rate of fire of 1.5 rounds per minute, per gun), the arrangement allowed six guns firing forward and over the stern (in certain narrow angles) but effectively also limited the broadside to six guns due to likely damage from cross-decked turrets. Magazines were shallow, and while most battleships of the era packed at least 100 shells per gun in the main battery, the Spanish ships could carry only 80.

Their secondary armament consisted of 20 4″/50 Vickers E series guns with a firing angle of 120 degrees, carried ten per broadside. However, they were protected in casemate positions that were too close to the waterline to be useful in even a moderate sea state.

Defense against torpedoes and torpedo boats came from Bullivant series metal nets carried on 20 40-foot outrigger booms. Boats coming close enough would have to face four Vickers 47mm 3-pounder QF mounts, while two 7mm Maxim machine guns were mounted on the bridge wings. For a landing party, she could send a company-sized force of light infantry ashore armed with rifles, pistols, and two light guns.

Their Vickers and Armstrong-supplied Krupp Cemented steel armor plan ranged from an 8-inch belt amidships (thinning to just 3 inches at the bow) with 8 inches over the gun houses (6 inches at the barbettes), 6 inches over the casemates, and a 10-inch conning tower.

It doesn’t take a naval scholar to see this is more akin to what you would see on a big cruiser than a dreadnought, and was closer to that seen on the lightly armored British Invincible-class battlecruisers, which carried a 6-inch belt, 7 over the turrets, and 10 in the conning tower. However, while Invincible at least had 2.5-inch torpedo bulkheads under the waterline, the Spanish vessels had no such underwater protection, making do with just 1.5 inches of HT screens over 12 of her 16 sections.

Spanish Espana class battleships, Janes 1921

When it comes to manning, during peacetime, the ships could make do with a 650-700 man crew, growing to 854 on mobilization. This is a bit larger than on HMS Dreadnought (810 wartime) and on par with USS South Carolina (869), with the Spanish ships universally noted as being cramped, especially so in the enlisted berthing as space had been carved out for carried sumptuous (often unoccupied) suites for admirals.

The engineering plant consisted of a dozen coal-fired Yarrow pattern boilers built domestically under license by Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima (MTM) in Barcelona, which had made the boilers and machinery for the cruiser Extremadura in 1902 as well as for the cruiser Lepanto before that and the engines for the Infanta María Teresa class armored cruisers in the 1890s. Each ship would use four Parsons turbines built at Ferrol by SECN to generate 15,500shp for 19.5 knots. Using forced draft and oil-sprayed coal to reach full power of 21,582 shp, ships on trials bested 20 knots.

The construction of Parsons turbines for the Espana-class battleships by SECN at Ferrol under the supervision of Parsons’ Mr. Dixon. The turbine house went on to craft engines for Hamburg-America liners post-war and today is still around as Navantia Seanergies’ Fábrica de Turbinas facility, still located in Ferrol:

The class used four, three-bladed screws

They were modern ships, with hydraulically operated main turrets whose guns could be loaded at any angle, electric lifts and lights, forced ventilation, and six independent electric bilge pump systems. Six large 30-inch searchlights dotted the superstructure and her two masts. A Telefunken TSH wireless station, only first installed in Spanish service on the battleship Pelayo in 1904, was standard on each ship.

At the end of the day, three Spanish dreadnoughts were ordered and built: Espana, Alfonso XIII (also seen as Alfonso Trece), and Jaime I, with the first two built nearly side-by-side.

Construction was all done at Ferrol, with Espana laid down in December 1909 and the last hull, Jaime I, delayed by the Great War, completed only in December 1921.

Cost per hull, with machinery and armament, was 43 million Spanish pesetas, leaving the program total at about 150 million pesetas. Adjusted for inflation in 2026 USD is $281 million per ship and about $1B for the program as a whole.

They would be the largest warships built in Spain until the only slightly bigger 16,700-ton light carrier SPS Príncipe de Asturias (R-11) was delivered by Bazan, Ferrol, in 1988.

Spanish battleship España at the Ferrol shipyard

Spanish battleship España, lead ship of her class, receiving the finishing touches at the Victoria Eugenia dock in the port of Ferrol before being launched in May 1913.

Spanish battleship España launching at the Ferrol shipyard

Spanish battleship España launched at the Ferrol shipyard

Acazadoro España christening cover

But that’s not all. The Spanish admiralty planned a follow-on class of three 21,000-ton Reina Victoria Eugenia-class ships, carrying 13.5-inch guns and capable of 21-knots, laid out as sort of a more compact HMS Queen Elizabeth-class battleship.

The official plan, set to come to fruition around 1918-20, would be that the six completed dreadnoughts would be joined by the three existing 7,000-ton Princesa de Asturias-class armored cruisers, three new 5,000-ton/25-knot protected cruisers based on HMS Birmingham, and up to a dozen new Bustamante-class destroyers under a grand strike force dubbed 1.er Escuadrón.

Well, anyway…

Meet Alfonso XIII

Our subject was the second Spanish warship named in honor of King Alfonso XIII de España, “el Africano,” who had been born to the country’s queen regent in May 1886, six months after his father, Alfonso XII, passed away. This made him the infant king at birth, and he held the throne for 44 years until April 1931.

The previous warship to carry his name was a Reina Regente-class protected cruiser built at Ferrol for a cost of 9 million pesetas and, overloaded and with cranky engines, was immediately relegated to training when completed in 1896, then was decommissioned four years later and scrapped in 1907. The class leader sank during a storm at sea in 1895, taking all 420 men to the bottom, while the third member of the class, Lepanto, was removed and scrapped just 12 years after she was completed, closing the book on the experimental and ineffectual class.

The Reina Regente-class protected cruiser Alfonso XIII anchored in Mahón circa 1898. Naming a battleship after the king had much better optics than this humble and unsuccessful vessel, which was largely restricted to daytime sailing within sight of shore.

Announced on 17 November 1909 with the other two members of her class, the keel of the future battleship Alfonso XIII was laid at the SECN shipyard in Ferrol on 23 February 1910.

The keel of the battleship Alfonso XIII is being laid at the Ferrol arsenal. The battleship Espana is under construction on the left.

Great War service

In August 1914, Spain had the Espana fully complete and only completed gunnery trials two months prior, the old Pelayo, the four previously mentioned Princesa de Asturias and Emperador Carlos V-class armored cruisers, the protected cruiser Reina Regente (5781 t, 10×6″ guns, 19 knots), the small cruiser Río de La Plata (1875 t, 2×5.9″, 4×4″, 2xtt, 20 kts), the scout cruiser Extremadura which was deployed as a station ship to Mexico, and about 30 destroyers, gunboats, and minelayers. None of the new planned light cruisers and only one of the new Bustamante-class destroyers had been completed. Reina Victoria Eugenia, the planned 21,000-ton battlewagon, was soon canceled along with her two never-named sisters.

All in all, not a commanding fleet to take on any other European power, and certainly not the planned 1.er Escuadrón.

Spanish dreadnought battleship España during WWI IWM Q 68264

As Spain’s entry to the war on the side of France and Britain centered on Italy entering on the side of Germany and Austria, once Italy declared neutrality on 3 August 1914, the conservative Spanish government of Eduardo Dato announced on 7 August it was sitting out the war as well, at least for now. Plus, some 80 percent of the 220,000-strong Spanish Army (13 of 16 divisions) had been deployed to Morocco since 1911 to fight the rebellious Rif.

Launched on 7 May 1913, while fitting out, Alfonso XIII’s completion was delayed by the outbreak of the Great War, as much of her equipment, including her fire-control systems, was on hold in Britain pending developments. She was only commissioned into service, joining España in the 1.er Escuadrón, in August 1915, using an improvised fire-control system secured via Sweden, another neutral.

España and Alfonso XIII’s Great War consisted primarily of training exercises, frequently conducted off Galicia, and a naval review off Santander during the namesake king’s usual summer holidays there. Alfonso even stood by in home waters while España sailed across the Atlantic to Panama along with a Portuguese cruiser to mark the opening ceremonies of the Panama Canal.

A little excitement came whenever German, French, or British ships skirted the Spanish coast, and U-boats occasionally appeared on official business or, damaged, sought internment.

The Spanish fleet was responsible for the continued watch on 70 German and 25 Austrian merchant vessels that spent the war immobilized in the country’s harbors.

Further, Alfonso assisted the tug Antelo after the latter ran aground off Cape Prior in April 1917 and searched for the missing destroyer Terror (one of the fleet’s few survivors of the 1898 war) when the latter went missing in a storm.

She was also called upon to send a landing force ashore at Bilbao in August 1917 to put down a rebellion by armed miners and railway workers that required a “whiff of gunpowder” to put down, resulting in the death of one of the battleship’s sailors and the arrest of 22 Reds who were dutifully hauled back to the ship for detention.

The follow-on Figueroa, Prieto, and Maura governments would keep up the wobbly neutrality through the end of the brutal conflict. That didn’t stop Spanish factories from making arms for the allies and shipping them millions of tons of raw materials (for the first time in its modern history, Spain did not have a trade deficit), 2,000 Spanish/Catalan volunteers crossing the Pyrenees to join the French Foreign Legion, or German U-boats from sinking 80 Spanish merchantmen during the war– a full quarter of the country’s merchant marine.

Likewise, the country became a hot-bed for spies from both sides, and the Spanish African colony of Guinea had to accommodate 47,000 German refugee colonists and soldiers from nearby Kamerun after it was captured by the British and French in February 1916.

The Spanish king founded the humanitarian Oficina Pro Cautivos, or Pro Captives Office, which oversaw the exchange in Spanish ports of 21,000 sick POWs from both sides under the aegis of the Red Cross while handling 250,000 requests for information about (mostly French and Belgian) missing persons or prisoners, and Spanish military attachés abroad conducted more than 4,000 visits to POW camps across Europe for inspections.

The country eventually took a bit of reparations in the form of 12 German merchant ships totaling 35,704 GRT seized in Spanish ports in October 1918 or handed over after the war for compensation for the U-Boat sinkings. These included the fine 9,000-ton Hansa steamer Neuenfels, which became the Spanish Navy’s seaplane tender (portahidroaviones) Dédalo, but that is another story.

Peacetime Cruising

Following the end of hostilities, the Spanish were finally able to complete the third España-class battlewagon, and Alfonso XIII received her originally intended fire control equipment. Further, all three were modernized by removing the four 1900s vintage 47mm Hotchkiss guns in favor of a pair of new 3″/34 Vickers FF model AAA mounts.

Battleship Alfonso XIII in Cartagena in the early 1920s

Alfonso was busy.

She landed troops to guard Barcelona’s railway system for 44 days during riots in early 1919.

In June 1920, Alfonso set out on an American goodwill tour with naval cadets aboard, stopping at the Canary Islands on the 22nd, becoming the first Spanish warship to visit Cuba since 1898 (calling at Havana on July 9) and Puerto Rico.

Battleship Alfonso Xlll visiting La Habana newspaper 1920 first Spanish warship since 1898

Battleship Alfonso XIII visits Havana in 1920

Battleship Alfonso XIII visits San Juan, PR, July 9, 1920

Battleship (Acorazado) Alfonso XIII visits San Juan, PR, July 9, 1920

Calling at Annapolis, the academy’s training hulk, the former Spanish cruiser USS Reina Mercedes, captured in 1898, raised the old flag in honor.

She then called at New York City, the first Spanish warship to do so since Vizcaya in early 1898. There, she picked up parts and material for the Spanish submarine Isaac Peral (A 01), which had been built at Fore River in 1916, as well as the Spanish B-class submarines which were being built back home in Cartagena based on designs from Electric Boat, then called on Norfolk for another goodwill visit before heading back home in October.

In 1921, she started off the year by visiting Portugal in April, then by July was off the coast of Spanish Morocco to bombard the Rif, who were busy winning their war. Alfonso would spend the next four years deployed off and on to the colony, exchanging artillery duels with Rif field guns, landing troops and marines for campaigns ashore, and delivering naval gunfire support.

It was during the conflict that class leader España ran aground off Cape Tres Forcas in August 1923 while providing NGFS ashore and was lost.

Spanish battleship España during Rif war 1923

Salvage vessel Kanguro during the rescue of the 305mm guns from battleship España

The campaign culminated with the Alhucemas landings in September 1925, which saw 13,000 Spanish and French troops kick in the door to take the Rif stronghold head-on.

Alhucemas Landing, 8 September 1925, Moro Nuevo Beach

Supported by 164 aircraft, a dirigible, and 17 tanks, the battleline for the landings included the two remaining España-class sisters (Alfonso and Jaime) as well as the French Courbet-class battleship Paris. Six cruisers: the Spanish Méndez Núñez, Blas de Lezo, Victoria Eugenia, and Extremadura; and the French Metz and Strasbourg, also took part in the effort along with the seaplane carrier Dedalo and nearly 100 assorted destroyers, monitors, gunboats, and transports.

It was the largest amphibious operation since Gallipoli, and proved far more successful, keeping the tactic alive in the mind of strategists for another generation.

Besides her experience fighting the Rif, Alfonso carried out several additional goodwill cruises, including one to Italy in 1923, carried her namesake and his wife on a cruise of the Galician coast in the summer of 1927, and led the international naval parade for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.

Spanish battleships Alfonso XIII and Jaime I in 1929.

Nothing Civil About War

The national economic crisis that hit Spain as part of the Great Depression in 1931 led the King to abdicate his throne in April and head to Rome in exile, leaving the new socialist government to order the battleship named after him to be renamed to España, recycling the name left vacant after her sister sank in 1923.

As part of austerity measures, both España (ex-Alfonso) and Jaime I were placed in reserve at Ferrol on 15 June 1931.

1931 Janes Spanish battleships Espana Jaime Primero Alfonso XIII

While a series of proposed modernizations for the obsolete battlewagons were mulled over the next four years, the government’s grip on the country grew tenuous. Jaimie was reactivated in 1934 to help put down the anarchist Asturian Revolution, firing her guns into the Cimadevilla neighborhood of Gijón and bringing reliable Spanish Legion and the Regulares colonial troops up from Morocco to fight the 30,000-strong Red Army.

Spanish North African troops (the Grupos de Regulares de Melilla) parade down Corrida Street in Gijón after crushing the Asturian revolution. The troops had been carried to the city by Jaimie I and the cruiser Almirante Cervera, which also bombarded several rebel-held towns.

Spanish battleship Jaime I circa 1933 note double white id flash on funnels

Spanish battleship in Barcelona, Jaime I, 1930s

When the coup that kicked off what is now known as the Spanish Civil War kicked off in July 1936, Jaime was in Santander, with her cannons pointed at the military barracks which had been ready to go over to the rebels of Franco’s right-aligned Nationalists.

Meanwhile, still in dry dock in Ferrol, the skeleton crew of España (ex-Alfonso) joined with that of the cruiser Almirante Cervera to resist the pro-Franco coup which carried the Naval Arsenal there on 20 July 1936.

Spanish battleship España (formerly Alfonso XIII) photographed in Ferrol in 1936

After a two-day siege of the dry yard and dry dock by the Nationalist forces and out of bullets for their rifles (they had no shells for the ship’s guns), the loyalist crew of España laid down their arms. In the immediate aftermath, 72 sailors from the battleship were put on trial by the new government, with 28 duly shot by firing squad and 34 hauled off to the brig.

With the whole yard ordered to bring España (ex-Alfonso) into fighting trim, she was placed back into commission on 12 August 1936, although only half of her 12-inch Vickers H guns (turrets Nos 1 and 4) were operable, along with 12 of 20 4″/50 casemate guns, plus she had a much-reduced and very green crew.

By this stage of the Civil War, the Republican (loyalist government) side had the battleship Jaime Primereo, the light cruisers Libertad (Galicia), Miguel de Cervantes, Mendez Nunez, 12 destroyers, six torpedo boats, five subs and several smaller craft.

Marino: un heroe, a Republican Navy recruiting poster based on Jaime Primereo made by Arturo Ballester. UC San Diego Library.

Casting their lot with the Nationalist (insurgent) forces under Franco besides España (ex-Alfonso) were the heavy cruisers Canarias, Baleares, and Almirante Cervera, and the old light cruiser Navarra (ex- Republica, ex-Reina Victoria Eugenia), the destroyer Velasco, TRs 2, 7, 9, 16, and 19, the submarines C3, C 5, C 6, and B 5, all six of the country’s minelayers, the gunboats Canoaros del Castillo and Dato, along with a myriad of smaller craft.

Escorted by the destroyer Velasco, España (ex-Alfonso), dubbed Abuelo (grandfather) by the forces she supported, carried out blockade missions on the Republican-held coastline for the next six weeks until the end of September. These included bombarding vital fuel depots at Santurce, hitting troop concentrations at Gipuzkoa, San Sebastián, Irún, and Fuenterrabía, helping break the siege of Simancas, and in the capture of several ships transporting supplies to the Republicans.

Improvements to España (ex-Alfonso) and subsequent yard periods saw the battleship by October 1936 return a third turret (No 3) to operation, her fourth turret used as a source of spare parts for the other three. She saw eight of her 4-inch casemate guns removed for service ashore. To counter possible Nationalist air attacks, she was fitted with four German 88mm SK L/45 C/13s and two 20mm C/30 flak cannons.

Returning to service, she shrugged off a series of torpedo and air attacks over the next six months but, while chasing the British steamer Knitsley, struck a mine near Santander on 30 April 1937, likely laid by the Nationalists as they controlled the country’s entire minelayer fleet. Suffering from a combination of poor underwater protection and an inexperienced crew, she was lost, sinking slowly over the course of three hours. Her escorting destroyer Velasco managed to save all but five of her crew.

It was claimed at the time that she was sunk by air attack.

Airmen Who Sank The Espana. — All Loyalist Spain is feting the Government airmen who made history by sinking the rebel battleship, “Espana”, the first battleship ever to be destroyed in an air attack. The feat was accomplished by the airmen while the “Espana” was trying to stop the British steamer “Knitsley” (4,261 tons) from entering Santander with a cargo of iron ore. Six hundred men of the “Espana” went down with their ship four miles off Cape Mayor, near Santander. The officers were rescued by the rebel destroyer “Velasco”. Photo shows the airmen who sank the “Espana” photographed at Santander on their return. Via UC San Diego Library

Her final sister, the Republican-controlled Jaime, ran aground at Punta Sabinar on 15 April, managed to refloat herself, and took refuge first in Almería, where she was hit first by a wave of Italian S-79 bombers then by German Condor Legion Heinkel He 59s of Aufklärungsstaffel See/88. Limping to Cartagena for repairs, a magazine explosion there (oft attributed to sabotage) sent the aging and weary battleship to the seabed, causing some 300 deaths in the process.

Spanish battleship Jaime Primero, listed as sunk in Jane’s 1938

Jaime’s 12-inch guns were salvaged and placed in the Strait of Gibraltar in coastal batteries D9 and D10 at El Vigía and Casquebel near Tarifa, while her smaller 4-inchers were placed in single mounts in the coastal batteries at Rafalbetx and Cabo Blanco in Mallorca, kept in service through the 1980s.

Likewise, the original España’s 12-inch and 4-inch guns, salvaged in 1924 from her wreck, were emplaced in numerous coastal defense batteries, the last of which, the La Marquina Battery in Cádiz, was still in operation until 1999.

Batería D9 El Vigía en Tarifa, Vickers 305 50 Spanish battleship acorazado Jaime I, foto cortesía de Alejandro Chaves.

Epilogue

Our subject’s wreck was discovered and charted by the Spanish Navy in 2016 by the salvage ship Neptuno.

She rests largely intact at a depth of 242 feet, making her a deep but not impossible dive.

She is also remembered in maritime art.

Battleship Alfonso XIII with Spanish Torpedero no 3

Spanish battleship Alfonso XIII, painting by Oscar Parkes

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Beautiful Cincy

Posted on May 26, 2026 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

A period photograph of USS Cincinnati (Cruiser Number 7), which served between 1894 and 1921. The image, showing the graceful 3,200-ton cruiser in gleaming white with her original ornate bow crest, would likely have been taken before 1911 when she picked up a more 20th-century haze gray.

Courtesy of Mr. H.L. Chapelle, Smithsonian Institution. NHHC Photograph Collection. NR&L (OLD) 20432-A

If you note, the photo is signed by Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance (USNA 1906), who served on board between 1911 and 1913 as a lieutenant J.G, holding down an engineering officer post while deployed on the Asiatic Station.

Cincinnati, who fought in the Spanish American War and served as flagship of the American Patrol Detachment, Atlantic Fleet from 1 February 1918 to 28 March 1919 on convoy duty around the Caribbean, carried single 6-inch gun, 10 5″/, eight 6-pounders, 2 1-pounders, and four 18-inch torpedo tubes as built.

USS Cincinnati (C-7) unofficial plans, published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, 1893. NH 70107

Following her 25-year career, she was decommissioned at New Orleans on 20 April 1919 and sold on 4 August 1921 for scrap so that her tonnage wouldn’t count against the U.S. in naval treaty allowances.

Blockade Prizes and Bounty Money, 1898

Posted on May 14, 2026 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Spanish-American War, 1898. The prize crew going to take possession of the Spanish Colon after she was run aground after the Battle of Santiago, Cuba, July 1898. From Journal of Naval Cadet C.R. Miller, USN. 1898. Description: NH 2201

As the war in the Hormuz and the resulting blockade stretch into their 10th and fifth weeks respectively, and following up to yesterday’s Warship Wednesday on the blockade-enforcing lighthouse tender Mangrove, here is a closer look at the prizes from the Spanish-American War.

The first Spanish ships, the steamers Buena Ventura and Pedro, were captured on 22 April 1898 by the battleship USS New York and her accompanying escorts, with the gunboat Nashville claiming the prior.

The USS Nashville (Gunboat No. 7) fired the first shots of the war across the bow of the Spanish steamer Buena Ventura, outbound with a cargo of Mississippi pine lumber from Pascagoula to Rotterdam, to bring her to a stop on 22 April 1898, nine miles from Sand Key Light.

The capture took place just before the formal declaration of war, while the U.S. was establishing a blockade of Cuba, and the seizure was later upheld by the Supreme Court, 175 U.S. 384 (1899). Her cargo was released, as it was headed to the Netherlands, while Buena Ventura was sold at auction for $12,200, with a portion of that divided by the crew of Nashville and her squadron.

On the 23rd, the schooners Matilda and Condita were impounded. The 24th brought the steamer Miguel Jover and the schooners Sofia and Catalina.

This snowballed to 18 ships by the end of April, another 14 collected in May, just four in June, 19 in July, and one in August, with a total of at least 56 large commercial vessels impounded and sent to the court for adjudication.

All but four impounded vessels were “condemned with cargo” by the courts and sold, with 10 owners pushing the outcome to the Supreme Court.

The outliers that escaped sale included the British steamer Restormel Barry, which was released after her cargo was impounded. The British sloop Pilgrim was ordered released with cargo intact, as was the Mexican steamer Tabasqueno. The Spanish tug Humberto Rodriguez, seized off Nuevitas just two weeks before the end of the war by the auxiliary cruiser USS Badger, was ordered released by a New York Court as the tug carried red cross markings.

Some $701,034.36 was realized after auctions, deposited into the U.S. Treasury– with portions of said prizes paid to the crews of the vessels that captured them, an American tradition going back to 1798 and carried over from the British.

From the government records:

The above doesn’t include small coastwise vessels, of which an untold armada was collected, and were sold locally without being towed back to the U.S.

A prime example given is the auxiliary cruiser USS Dixie, which alone captured 89 lighters and sailing vessels at Ponce, considered a “good haul.”

Carrying 10 6-inch guns, the auxiliary cruiser USS Dixie, under CDR Charles H. Davis, had a very good war in 1898, entered the harbor at Ponce, Puerto Rico, on July 27, forcing the town to surrender and securing a landing place for the U.S. Army forces, claiming 89 of 91 small vessels in the harbor for her trouble. Post-war, she became the Navy’s first destroyer tender, AD-1, and continued to serve until 1922.

It should also be noted that this is above and beyond claims for Bounty filed by U.S. warships for destroyed and/or captured Spanish naval vessels, with the monies distributed to the crews, with squadron commanders included at a larger share.

For reference, Dewey was awarded $28,070 in bounty and prize money for the Battle of Manila Bay (his “cut” of $244,400) while Sampson pocketed a more paltry $8,335 (out of $166,700) for the destruction of the Spanish squadron off Santiago. Keep in mind that the base rate for rear admirals of the era was $4,675 per annum.

All awards of prize money and bounty money to U.S. Navy personnel were abolished by Congress via the Act of March 3, 1899 (30 Stat. 1121), with later much-hyped instances, such as the capture of the German cargo ship Odenwald in 1941 by the USS Omaha and Somers, being paid under salvage rights granted under maritime law, not as “head” money.

Warship Wednesday 13 May 2026: Unexpected Blockade Enforcer

Posted on May 13, 2026 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

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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Warship Wednesday 6 May 2026: 50 Years Low and Slow

Posted on May 6, 2026 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Warship Wednesday 6 May 2026: 50 Years Low and Slow

Historic New England PC047.02.5870.09396

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.

USS Dolphin at Galveston, Texas, 1 March 1919. Photographed by Paul Verkin, Galveston. Note that the ship is still wearing pattern camouflage nearly four months after the World War I Armistice. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2007. NH 104949

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.

Yorktown Class Gunboat USS Concord pictured about to depart Dry Dock No.1 at Mare Island Navy Yard on June 26th 1903.

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

USS PETREL (PG-2) (1899-1920) in Japanese waters, during the 1890s. Collection of Shizuo Fukui, copied from Dr. S. Watanabe’s Album. The photo was provided by William H. Davis. NH 42706

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.

USS Machias

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.

Gunsboat USS Nashville PG-7

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.

Line drawing from Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, Vol. 2, 1894. Robb Jensen collection

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

Wilmington Olangapo PI dry dock

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.

USS Wilmington (PG-8) getting underway from Port of Spain, Trinidad, 21 January 1899 for Orinoco/Amazon Rivers cruise, giving a good view of her stern pair of 4″/40s. NH 77614

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.

Crewmen at the six-pounder and one-pounder guns of USS Wilmington (PG-8), circa January 1899, with the latter commonly used for saluting and challenges. Courtesy of Mrs. Chapman C. Todd, 1973.NH 77633

The 1904 Jane’s entry for the class showing the battery arrangement with two 4″/40 guns forward, two rear, and two on each beam, while the 6- and 1-pounders were split between an amidships gundeck with two aloft in the fighting top.

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.

Sailors at Musketry Drill, circa 1900-1910. They are armed with M1898 (Krag-Jorgenson) rifles. Note Warrant Officer at left, holding a sword. The sword was abolished in 1905 for landing party duty, but may have continued in use, informally, for drill. Courtesy of Carter Rila, 1986. NH 100833

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.

USS Wilmington (PG-8) and USS Nashville (PG-7) ready for launching at Newport News, Virginia, 19 October 1895. Photo by Hart, New York. NH 63204

Miss Anne Grey, daughter of Senator Grey of Delaware, just before christening USS Wilmington (PG-8), at Newport News, Virginia, 19 October 1895. Photo by Hart, New York. NH 63206

Miss Anne Grey, daughter of Senator Grey of Delaware, christening USS Wilmington (PG-8), at Newport News, Virginia, 19 October 1895. Photo by Hart, New York. NH 63208

Wilmington launched at Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., 19 October 1895. Photo by Hart, New York. NH 63202

Wilmington during fitting out with no armament installed. NH 63584

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 and Helena gunboats, Janes 1898

Officers of the USS Helena (PG-9) and HMS Espiegle alongside the Helena in China, 1903-1904. Courtesy of Captain E.B. Larimer, USN, 1931.NH 133

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.

A haze gray USS Wilmington. Halftone photo from “War in Cuba”, 1898. Note the gun shields are installed on her 4″/40s. NH 85651

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.”

La batalla de Cárdenas, Museo naval de Madrid, showing the gunboat Antonio Lopez facing off against Wilmington, Winslow, and Foote, at distances made shorter for artistic license.

Engagement off Cardenas, May 11, 1898. Death of Ensign Bagley of the Winslow by Henry Reuterdahl. Left to right: USS Winslow, Hudson, and Wilmington. NH 71837-KN

Battle of Cárdenas USS Wilmington USS Winslow Hudson

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.

Wilmington, just after the SpanAm War, Boston Harbor for a naval parade on 2 September 1898, Historic New England PC047.02.2970.10961

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!

USS Wilmington (PG-8) portrait photo of the ship’s officers in January 1899, by the helm. The commanding officer was Commander Chapman C. Todd, seated second from the left. Francis B. Loomis, the U.S. minister to Venezuela, is in civilian dress, and Army Captain Charles Collins, military attaché to Venezuela, is seated on the right. Courtesy of Mrs. Chapman C. Todd, 1973. NH 77638

USS Wilmington (PG-8) crew members on the forecastle of the ship, circa January 1899, while the ship was on an exploratory cruise of the Orinoco River, Venezuela. Note the 6-pounder to the right. NH 77631

Wilmington at anchor at Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, during the ship’s exploratory cruise up the Orinoco River, January 1899. Ciudad Bolivar was the most inland point reached. The river was not navigable by ship shortly beyond this point. NH 77625

Wilmington at anchor in the Orinoco River at Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, during the ship’s exploratory cruise up the Orinoco, January 1899. Note stevedoring on the merchant ship. NH 77626

USS Wilmington, gunboat #8 LOC Detriot LC-DIG-det-4a16361

Gunboat No 8, USS Wilmington, pictured on the Orinoco River, Venezuela. LOC det 4a05681

Ship at anchor during a brief visit to Barrancas, Venezuela, returning downstream from the USS Wilmington’s exploratory cruise up the Orinoco River, January 1899. Barrancas is located near the delta formed by the Orinoco. NH 77629

Ship’s bugler and a rapid-fire gun squad of USS Wilmington, circa January 1899. Crewmen not identified. Description: NH 77613

USS Wilmington (PG-8) saluting the governor of the province at Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, during the ship’s exploratory cruise up the Orinoco River, January 1899. NH 77628

Coal-passers of the ship on deck with mascot (goat), circa January 1899, while the ship was on an exploratory cruise of the Orinoco River, Venezuela. NH 77632

USS Wilmington (PG-8) approaching anchorage at Guanta, Venezuela, in February 1899. Guanta was a village on the north coast of Venezuela. Note laundry drying. NH 77636

USS Wilmington (PG-8) anchored in Guanta Harbor, Venezuela, circa February 1899. NH 77637

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.

Wilmington and Callao at Canton, China, 1912

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.

USS Wilmington seen at Hong Kong BCC (British Crown Colony), likely during her stint as station ship from 30 June 1912 to 30 June 1914. Note she still has her bow crest. NH 49466

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.

A 5″/51 gun training stand, which helped drill rammers, loaders, and powdermen. A second stand would be used for training pointers and trainers.

USS Wilmington was taken in the 1920s while operating in the Great Lakes as a training ship. Courtesy of Mr. A.W. Mears, 1967. NH 49465

USS Wilmington (IX-30, ex PG-8) during the 1930s, while serving as a Naval Reserve training ship on the Great Lakes. NH 76514

Wilmington circa 1920s-30s on the Great Lakes. Note that her casemates are empty and deck guns removed. Indiana University Frank M. Hohenberger Photograph Collection Hoh034.000.0003

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

Helena & Wilmington, 1929 Janes

(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).

Dover at Gulfport, May 1944

Dover at Gulfport, May 1944. Note her cased 20mm guns

Dover at Gulfport, May 1944

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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I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, 11 March 2026: Mighty Morrill

Posted on March 11, 2026 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, 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

Warship Wednesday 11 March 2026: Mighty Morrill

Detroit Publishing Collection in the Library of Congress. LC-D4-9007

Above we see, roughly some 125 years ago, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Morrill, forward, just off the sleek yacht Pathfinder, “standing guard at the first turn,” during the Canada’s Cup yacht race on Lake Ontario in 1901, when Pathfinder hosted the judges. The race was won by the Invader of Mr. Aemilius Jarvis, for the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, besting the yacht Cadillac of the Chicago Club in three of four races.

While dressed in gleaming white and buff, Morrill was a fighter when needed and had already seen service in one war with the “Mosquito Fleet” and had another on the schedule.

Meet Morrill

Our subject is the only U.S. warship named for President Ulysses S. Grant’s circa 1876-77 Treasury Secretary, Lot Myrick Morrill, a former Maine governor and longtime U.S. Senator who passed in 1883. As such, the vessel continued the cutter service’s common naming convention, which repeatedly used the names of past Treasury Secretaries, dating back to Alexander Hamilton.

Part of a trend in the 1880s-90s to build new cutters that could double as gunboats and dispatch boats for the Navy in time of war, USRC Morrill was steel-hulled and had a steam plant capable of pushing her at 13 knots on a compound steam plant (engine cylinders measuring 24 and 38 inches, with a 30-inch stroke). At the same time, her auxiliary schooner rig could be used to extend cruising range.

Some 145 feet overall with a 24-foot beam, Morrill displaced 288 tons and had a draft of just over 12 feet on a standard load. She was a forerunner of the six slightly larger 205-foot “Propeller-class” plow-bowed cruising cutters built 1896-98.

USRC Morrill, circa 1898-1917, while stationed on the Great Lakes, via the Edward J. Dowling Collection, University of Detroit-Mercy

USCG Morrill, circa 1916-1917 (note her “Coast Guard” life rings), while stationed on the Great Lakes, via the Edward J. Dowling Collection, University of Detroit-Mercy

USRC Morrill, circa 1898-1917, while stationed on the Great Lakes, via the Edward J. Dowling Collection, University of Detroit-Mercy

Morrill’s peacetime armament was a single light 6-pounder 57mm Hotchkiss QF gun forward, which could be quickly doubled and augmented with a 3-inch mount in time of war, with weight and space reserved for the extra ordnance. Cutters of the era typically shipped with 55 service rounds for their main gun and 110 blank charges for drill, salutes, or “shots across the bow.”

2nd LT Godfrey L. Carden instructing a 6-pounder gun crew aboard the Revenue Cutter Morill in South Carolina waters, circa 1892. Note the rarely-seen USRSC officer’s sword. Carden would later become the Captain of the Port for New York City in the Great War. USCGH Photo 210210-G-G0000-1002

A significant small arms locker of rifles and revolvers could arm half of her 40-man crew for duty ashore or in seizing vessels, be they bandits and smugglers in peacetime or enemy shipping in war. The service of the era was often called upon to restore law and order ashore, as exemplified in a famous incident where a squad from the revenue cutter McLane landed in Cedar Key, Florida, in 1890 to reclaim the town from its pistol-toting mayor and his gang of ruffians!

Morrill’s berth deck enlisted accommodations were considered spacious for the period and, if needed, would “readily admit of 70 men.”

Her magazine included provision for several large electrically detonated “wrecking mines” packed with as much as 238 pounds of guncotton, used in destroying derelicts– or in reducing hazardous icebergs and blasting paths in the ice sheet both on the Great Lakes and North Atlantic.

Back in the days of wooden-hulled fishing vessels and cargo schooners (sometimes loaded with buoyant cargo such as timber), abandoned vessels could often remain afloat for weeks and remain an enduring hazard to navigation, requiring the dangerous task of sending a wrecking crew in a small boat to rig the gun cotton mines to a waterlogged, unstable hulk.

Cutter destroying a derelict ‘A subject for Dynamite’ drawn by W. Taber, engraved by H. Davidson.

Derelict located by Revenue Cutter Seneca had drifted 285 miles, circa 1900. NARA 56-AR-006

Revenue Cutter McCulloch, attaching mines to destroy a derelict, circa 1900. National Archives Identifier 158884024. NARA Local Identifier 56-AR-63

Revenue Cutter Miami, Preparing to place mines to destroy derelict, circa 1900

Revenue Cutter Onondaga, Loading mines for destroyed sunken wreck, circa 1900. NARA AR-066

Built in 1889 by the Pusey and Jones Corp., Wilmington, Delaware, for a cost of $72,600, USRC Lot M. Morrill (typically only ever seen as “Morrill” in paperwork) was commissioned on 10 October of that year.

In typical Revenue Cutter fashion, her crew crossed decked from an older cutter that was decommissioned in the same stroke– the Civil War-era USRC Naugatuck, which had been based at New Bern, North Carolina since 1865.

Taking up Naugatuck’s old beat– which her experienced crew was familiar with– Morrill was stationed at Wilmington, North Carolina, for her first homeport.

In March 1891, our new cutter performed a then novel inland passage, a military experiment, making it the 155 miles from Charleston, South Carolina, to Fernandina, Florida via the North Edisto, Ashley, Wadmalaw, Stono, and Amelia rivers. She did so with sometimes just a foot of water under her keel and just 30 feet of wetted width between banks as opposed to her 24-foot beam! It was often slow going, especally in tight bends, and in some stretches the charts of the river were quite bad, but via leading with a small boat ahead of her bow dropping lead to verify depth, the task was accomplished in three winding days, only running up on a mudbank once –some six miles up the Wadmalaw– and able to free herself with minor effort. At night, the cutter lay up, ablaze with electric light, proving much the attraction to the locals who came out to watch the curious “bluejackets” in the marsh.

Still, she proved, at least in theory, that a squadron of torpedo boats could run the shallow brackish and fresh waterways from Philadelphia to Fernandina– save for a short break between Moorehead City, North Carolina, and Bulls Bay, South Carolina– keeping well hidden from a European blockading squadron.

With Morrill’s officers dutifully updating their chart and leaving range stakes behind them, it was deemed that, with a little minor dredging here and there, a blue water vessel under 175 feet overall drawing less than 11 feet could make the run from Philly to Florida almost completely inland, enabling dispersed operations of torpedo boat squadrons which could run out from river mouths and shoreline bays to strike enemy battlelines then retreat into their havens.

It should be noted that the USS Cushing (Torpedo Boat #1), which entered service in 1890, was only 140 feet overall with a draft of just less than five feet, and it was only when Farragut (TB-11) joined the fleet in 1899 that American torpedo boats stretched longer than 175 feet.

While the river haven tactic wasn’t actively pursued much further in the U.S., Morrill’s marsh cruise did help lay the way for today’s Intracoastal Waterway, which has rambled 3,000 miles from Boston to Brownsville since 1949 and is key for the movement of commerce in the country today.

Anyway, speaking of Fernandina, Florida, and points south, in early January 1895, Cuban exile leader Jose Marti completed preparations in the area to attempt to ignite a revolt against Spanish colonial despotism in his homeland. He and his followers purchased three small ships, the Amadis, Baracoa, and Lagonda, then outfitted them to carry his freedom fighters and supplies to Cuba. These were foiled by the Treasury Department, which had been ordered to southern Florida to abort such filibuster activities, with Morrill helping with the seizure of Lagonda at Fernandina directly.

From 1895 to 1898, cutters, including our Morrill, Boutwell, Colfax, Forward, McLane, and Winona, patrolled the Straits of Florida to enforce neutrality laws amid attempts to launch illegal expeditions to Cuba. According to Commandant Capt. Charles F. Shoemaker, these efforts required constant vigilance. One tug, Dauntless, was seized by cutters no less than three times. The cutters seized seven ships (besides Dauntless, including all three of Marti’s), detained 12 suspected violators, and disrupted two organized filibustering plots (Marti’s and one by Cuba Gen. Enrique Collazo) before the USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana harbor in February 1898.

Remember the Maine!

With the war drum beating, Morrill and her fellow cutters were soon mobilized a full month before war was declared by Congress on 25 April 1898.

On 24 March, President McKinley ordered Morrill, along with the cutters Gresham (206 foot), Manning (206 foot), Windom (170 foot), Woodbury (138 foot), Hamilton (133 foot), Hudson (94 foot), Guthrie (85 foot) and Calumet (95 foot), “with their officers and crews, be placed under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy, and cooperate with the Navy, until further orders…”

Before the conflict was over, 13 revenue cutters were transferred to naval service, staffed by 98 officers and 562 enlisted RCS men. Eight would serve at sea with the North Atlantic Squadron, one (McCulloch) famously fought with Dewey in the Philippines, and four patrolled the U.S. West Coast.

Morrill proceeded to Norfolk Navy Yard and was gently made ready for war, largely via adding at least one extra deck gun, which had varied widely in reports from a second 6-pounder to a gun as large as a 6-incher! Her crew was boosted to nine officers (including a surgeon) and 47 enlisted, allowing for an extra gun crew and ammo handlers.

Morrill’s wardroom during the Spanish-American War:

Captain Horatio Davis Smith, commanding
First Lieutenant John Cassin Cantwell, executive
Second Lieutenant F.A. Levis, navigator
Second Lieutenant C.S. Craig
Third Lieutenant Henry G. Fisher
Chief Engineer E.P. Webber
First Assistant Engineer William Robinson
Second Assistant Engineer F.G. Snyder
Surgeon J. Spencer Hough

USRC Morrill at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 22 April 1898. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-19-21-10

Morrill and her fellow cutters Hudson, Hamilton, and Windom would join the 1st division of the North Atlantic Squadron under the bewhiskered Commodore John Adams Howell (USNA, 1858, best known to history for his early locomotive torpedo). A veteran of the Battle of Mobile Bay, Howell’s division included his flag, the 4,800-ton USS San Francisco I (Cruiser No. 5), the cruiser Montgomery (C-9), four monitors, and 15~ gunboats, with many of the latter being armed yachts quickly converted.

Morrill linked up with the three-masted 204-foot Annapolis-class gunboat USS Vicksburg (PG-11) for the first time on 31 March at Hampton Roads. The two would become partners off Havana, with Vicksburg’s logs mentioning our cutter at least 31 times between then and 14 August. The two worked in conjunction with Vicksburg’s sistership Annapolis, the 275-foot armed yacht USS Mayflower (PY-1), and the plucky 88-foot armed tug USS Tecumseh (YT-24, ex-Edward Luckenbach).

On 24 April 1898, the up-armed Morrill, Hudson, and Hamilton, bound for Howell’s “Mosquito Fleet,” passed through Hampton Roads and, after asking formal permission of the Commodore, proceeded to Key West. From that point, they joined the Navy ships of the Cuban blockading fleet.

After delivering dispatches to the flagship USS New York, Morrill joined the blockade station 5 miles west of the Havana entrance on 5 May and soon captured the Spanish schooner Orienta. One of 25 seized Spanish merchantmen sold as prizes at Key West on 21 June 1898, Orienta must have been either very small or in poor condition, or both, as the vessel, including cargo and equipment, only brought $350 at auction (about $12K when adjusted for inflation) — the lowest of all 25.

It was off Havana that Vicksburg and Morrill became targets for Spanish coastal batteries mounting heavy 10- and 12-inch German pieces for about 20 minutes, with Smith noting in his official report, “came very close” and damaged the bridge with a fragment of shrapnel.

As chronicled in Our War with Spain for Cuba’s Freedom by Trumbull White:

The Spanish set a trap one day during the blockade. The wily Spaniards arranged a trap to send a couple of our ships to the bottom. A small schooner was sent out from Havana harbor to draw some of the Americans into the ambuscade. The ruse worked like a charm. The Vicksburg and the Morrill, in the heat of the chase and in their contempt for Spanish gunnery, walked straight into the trap that had been set for them. Had the Spaniards possessed their souls in patience but five minutes longer, not even their bad gun practice would have saved our ships, and two more of our vessels would lie at the bottom within two lengths of the wreck of the ill-starred Maine.

Friday evening, the Vicksburg and the Morrill, cruising to the west of Morro Castle, were fired on by the big guns of the Cojimar batteries. Two shots were fired at the Vicksburg, and one at the Morrill. Both fell short, and both vessels, without returning the fire, steamed out of range. It would have been folly to have done otherwise. But this time the Spaniards had better luck. The schooner they had sent out before daylight ran off to the eastward, hugging the shore, with the wind on her starboard quarter. About three miles east of the entrance to the harbor, she came over on the port tack. A light haze fringed the horizon, and she was not discovered until three miles offshore, when the Mayflower made her out and signaled the Morrill and Vicksburg.

Captain Smith, of the Morrill, and Commander Lilly, of the Vicksburg, immediately slapped on all steam and started in pursuit. The schooner instantly put about and ran for Morro Castle before the wind. By doing so, she would, according to the well-conceived Spanish plot, lead the two American warships directly under the guns of the Santa Clara batteries. These works are a short mile west of Morro and are a part of the defenses of the harbor. There are two batteries, one at the shore, which has been recently thrown up, of sand and mortar, with wide embrasures for eight-inch guns, and the other on the crest of the rocky eminence which juts out into the water of the gulf at the point.

The upper battery mounts modern 10-inch and 12-inch Krupp guns behind a six-foot stone parapet, in front of which are twenty feet of earthwork and a belting of railroad iron. This battery is considered the most formidable of Havana’s defenses, except Morro Castle. It is masked and has not been absolutely located by the American warships. It is probably due to the fact that the Spanish did not desire to expose its position that the Vicksburg and Morrill are now afloat.

The Morrill and Vicksburg were about six miles from the schooner when the chase began. They steamed after her at full speed, the Morrill leading until within a mile and a half of the Santa Clara batteries. Commander Smith, of the Vicksburg, was the first to realize the danger into which the reckless pursuit had led them. He concluded it was time to haul off and sent a shot across the bow of the schooner.

The Spanish skipper instantly brought his vessel about, but while she was still rolling in the trough of the sea, with her sails flapping, an 8-inch shrapnel shell came hurtling through the air from the water battery, a mile and a half away. It passed over the Morrill between the pilothouse and the smokestack and exploded less than fifty feet on the port quarter. The small shot rattled against her side. It was a close call.

Two more shots followed in quick succession, both shrapnel. One burst close under the starboard quarter, filling the engine room with the smoke of the explosion of the shell, and the other, like the first, passed over and exploded just beyond.

The Spanish gunners had the range, and their time fuses were accurately set. The crews of both ships were at their guns. Lieutenant Craig, who was in charge of the bow 4-inch rapid-fire gun of the Morrill, asked for and obtained permission to return fire. At the first shot, the Vicksburg, which was in the wake of the Morrill, slightly in-shore, sheared off and passed to windward under the Morrill’s stern.

In the meantime, Captain Smith also put his helm to port, and was none too soon, for as the Morrill stood off, a solid 8-inch shot grazed her starboard quarter and kicked up tons of water as it struck a wave 100 yards beyond. Captain Smith said afterward that this was undoubtedly an 8-inch armor-piercing projectile, and that it would have passed through the Morrill’s boilers had he not changed his course in the nick of time.

All the guns of the water battery were now at work. One of them cut the Jacob’s ladder of the Vicksburg adrift, and another carried away a portion of the rigging. As the Morrill and the Vicksburg steamed away, their aft guns were used, but only a few shots were fired. The Morrill’s 6-inch gun was elevated for 4,000 yards and struck the earthworks repeatedly. The Vicksburg fired but three shots from her 6-pounder.

The Spaniards continued to fire shot and shell for twenty minutes, but the shots were ineffective. Some of them were so wild that they roused the American “Jackies” to jeers. The Spaniards only ceased firing when the Morrill and Vicksburg were completely out of range.

If all the Spanish gunners had been suffering from strabismus, their practice could not have been worse. But the officers of both the Morrill and Vicksburg frankly admit their own recklessness and the narrow escape of their vessels from destruction. They are firmly convinced that the pursuit of the schooner was a neatly planned trick, which almost proved successful.

If any one of the shots had struck the thin skin of either vessel, it would have offered no more resistance than a piece of paper to a rifle ball.

The accurate range of the first few shots is accounted for by the fact that the Spanish officers had ample time to make observations. The bearings of the two vessels were probably taken with a range-finder at the Santa Clara battery, and, as this battery is probably connected by wire with Morro, they were able to take bearings from both points, and by laborious calculations, they fixed the positions of the vessels pretty accurately. With such an opportunity for observation, it would have been no great trick for an American gunner to drop a shell down the smokestack of a vessel.

As soon as the ships sheered off after the first fire, the Spanish gunners lost the range, and their practice became ludicrous. If they had waited five minutes longer before opening fire, Captain Smith says it would have been well-nigh impossible to have missed the target.

By 28 May, Morrill was assigned duty as a guard ship at Tampa, which grew tense a week later when three Spanish warships were said to be closing on the roadstead there. She remained in the greater Tampa area until early August, when she was ordered to rejoin the blockade off Matanzas on the 11th, one that she was released from on the 14th with the cessation of hostilities.

She was then ordered to tow the small torpedo boat USS Ericsson back to Norfolk, where she arrived on the 21st. Morrill would be held there for another month on naval orders in reserve, just in case she was needed for further war service. She had suffered no casualties during the war and only very minor damage.

In addition to Orienta, Morrill is noted in her USCG history as also seizing the 3,364-ton French steamer, Lafayette, in conjunction with Annapolis, and the Espana, a little Spanish fishing sloop. Espana is marked as taken by the Morrill about three miles off Mariel, just after a sharp engagement. The USS Newport was close at hand at the time, and a prize crew made up from both ships brought the capture into Key West. The Espana sold at auction for $1,350 in prize money. Lafayette was later released after it was determined that she was not carrying Spanish soldiers or contraband and was permitted to continue to Havana, her declared destination.

Two of Morrill’s officers were later awarded Bronze West Indies Naval Campaign Medals under the authority of a joint resolution of Congress, approved on 3 March 1901.

White hull days

On 28 September 1898, after nearly a decade of tough service, Morrill, her extra wartime armament landed, left Norfolk for Philadelphia, to receive new boilers and undergo dry docking. Once complete, she shipped to her new homeport on the Great Lakes, replacing the larger 205-foot cutter Gresham, which had been cut in two to move to the East Coast during the SpanAm War, and the service was in no mood to bisect again to send her back.

Morrill arrived at her new home on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee on 19 November, closing out her busy year.

Later, shifting to Detroit, she would begin a very quiet time in her career, stretching some 17 years. Underway during the open shipping season, she patrolled the waters of Lakes Huron, St. Clair, Erie, and Ontario, aiding vessels in distress and enforcing navigation laws. When the ice came, she was laid up during the winter months.

Morrill became part of the service’s first Vessel Traffic Service (VTMS), established on 6 March 1896, to track the movement and anchorage of vessels and rafts in the St. Mary’s River from Point Iroquois on Lake Superior to Point Detour on Lake Huron.

Originally named the River Patrol Service, this first VTMS was comprised of the Revenue Cutter Morrell and lookout stations at Johnson’s Point, Middle Neebish Dyke, and Little Rapids Cut. The stations were connected by telegraph lines linked back to the Pittsburgh Steamship Company offices in Sault Sainte Marie. Throughout the next several years, many lookout stations were established and then closed as needs and funding levels fluctuated. At one point, there were as many as 11 active stations along the river. During the early days, lookouts communicated with passing ships by kerosene lanterns and signal flags. Often, messages were delivered to passing ships by lookouts rowing out to them in small dinghies.

USRC Morrill at a Great Lakes port, circa 1898-1917. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson. NH 45730

An image from a dry plate negative of the freighter William E. Corey passing alongside an unidentified, white-hulled vessel at anchor, circa 1905, is almost certainly the Morrill. Library of Congress – Detroit Publishing Co. Collection LC-D4-21878

She performed lots of local community service, including providing the honor guard and salutes for Civil War monument dedications (for instance, at Two Rivers, Wisconsin, in 1900, and another at Kenosha the same summer).

The U.S. Revenue Cutter W.P. Fessenden (center), along with other vessels in the harbor at Kenosha, Wis., for the unveiling of the Soldiers Monument in Library Park on Decoration Day, May 30, 1900. The ship on the left is the steam yacht Pathfinder owned by F. W. Morgan, Chicago, Ill. On the right outboard is the U.S. Revenue Cutter Morrill, and inboard of that is the venerable U.S.S. Michigan. The photograph is part of the Louis Thiers Collection of the Kenosha History Center. It was taken by Louis Milton Thiers (1858-1950) and created from a glass plate negative.

In addition to her regular duties, she also patrolled many regattas, including the T. J. Lipton Cup regatta off Chicago, Illinois, in August of 1904.

In 1906, her cruising grounds included the waters between Niagara Falls through Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron to the Straits of Mackinac.

It seems during this period that her port side was her most photogenic.

U.S. Revenue Cutter Morrill, at Detroit with her glad rags flying, likely for July 4th between 1900 and 1910. Note her boat in the water. Detroit Publishing Collection in the Library of Congress. LC-D4-34826

USRC Morrill before WWI, circa 1907, with her bow gun covered in canvas. Note the large building in the background, dressed with a Sherwin-Williams paint ad. Detroit Publishing Collection in the Library of Congress. LC-D4-22466

USRC Morrill before WWI. Note her understated bow scroll and 6-pounder. Detroit Publishing Collection in the Library of Congress. LC-D4-9016

Morrill at the Goodrich Company dock in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Port bow view of vessel at dock near harbor entrance, with lighthouse at right in 1912. Wisconsin Maritime Museum P82-37-10-62C

Morrill, the revenue cutter Tuscarora, and eight reserve gunboats: USS Dubuque (PG-17), at the time the training ship by the Illinois Naval Militia; USS Don Juan de Austria (Wisconsin Naval Militia), USS Wolverine (Pennsylvania Naval Militia), USS Dorothea and USS Essex (Ohio Naval Militia), USS Gopher (Minnesota Naval Militia), USS Hawk (Naval Militia of New York) and USS Yantic of the Michigan Naval Militia, were the featured guests of the Chicago Yacht Club’s August 10-17, 1912 Great Naval Pageant which included 400 swabs from the training station at Lake Bluff, fireworks, and the conclusion of a cruise of 2,000 motorboats carrying 15,000 passengers from the Central Plain and inland rivers to Chicago to “rediscover” Lake Michigan.

As the club had 10 bona fide warships on hand, a mock battle was staged with large yachts, armed with saluting cannons, fleshing out the battle line.

As for the naval pageant, preparations were underway to defend Chicago against an August 10 naval attack. Under the command of the gunboat Dubuque, the attacking fleet of the Hawk, Gopher, Don Juan de Austria, and the revenue cutter Morrill from Lake Erie would be pitted against the Tuscarora, Yantic, Wolverine, Dorothea, and Essex. No part of Chicago, from Michigan Avenue to Oak Park, would be safe from the 4” guns trained on the City which could drop 4” shells with precision anywhere within the City limits. Hydroplanes traveling 40 mph were also to be used to determine whether this type of craft would be of assistance in warfare.

From 12-14 September 1912, Morrill and Dubuque patrolled the course of the speedboat races held by the Motor Club of Buffalo in the Niagara River.

Morrill and USS Dubuque (PG-17) at the Niagara motor boat races in September 1912. Edward J. Dowling Collection, University of Detroit-Mercy

Morrill at the opening of the Livingstone Channel in the Detroit River on October 19, 1912. Edward J. Dowling Collection, University of Detroit-Mercy

She also clocked in on more sobering duties. In the late summer of 1913, she found the lost 6,322-ton ore carrier SS Charles S. Price turned turtle, 13 miles northeast of Port Huron, Michigan, “taking every witness with her.”

The Kaiser to St. Helena!

On 4 August 1914, Morrill, along with other cutters, was ordered to “observe neutrality laws” after the outbreak of the Great War in Europe. This kicked into overdrive when the service, now part of the U.S. Coast Guard, was transferred to the Navy on 6 April 1917 with the country’s entry into the war.

Morrill was soon pulled from her familiar Great Lakes home in Detroit to patrol the Atlantic coast for German submarines out of Philadelphia with the 4th Naval District.

Leaving Detroit on 10 November 1917, she called at Quebec City on her way out and found herself in crowded Halifax on the afternoon of 5 December, anchoring near Dartmouth Cove to take on fuel and water.

Being jammed out of the main roadway saved her from destruction the next morning, with the cutter and her crew spending a fortnight in a very different Halifax, rendering aid and assistance.

Halifax explosion, with HMS Highflyer shown in the channel, via the Halifax Naval Museum

As detailed by the NHHC in Morrill’s DANFS entry:

Just after 0800, 6 December, the old French Line freighter Mont Blanc, carrying a full cargo of bulk explosives, was involved in a collision with the Norwegian steamship Iona in the Narrows of Halifax Harbor. A fire broke out on Mont Blanc, and at 0905, the ship and cargo exploded in a tremendous blast that shook all of Halifax.

The most reliable casualty figures list 1,635 persons killed and 9,000 injured in the tragedy. Sixteen hundred buildings were destroyed, and nearly 12,000 more within an area of 16 miles were severely damaged. Property damage was estimated at $35 million.

Morrill, not seriously damaged, turned her attention to the needs ashore. A rescue and assistance party under 2d Lt. H. G. Hemingway rendered valuable aid while the cutter stood by to tow other craft from the danger zone.

Morrill departed Halifax on 18 December. Her services had come to the attention of Sir Cecil Spring Rice, the British Ambassador to the United States, in a letter dated 9 January 1918, Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, noted that Morrill, “though considerably damaged by the violent explosion of munitions on another ship, was the first to render assistance to the distressed inhabitants of the stricken city.”

Morrill in Navy service, photographed during World War I. NH 45729

The cutter-turned-gunboat would remain part of the 4th Naval District throughout 1918 and well into 1919, retaining her prewar skipper, Capt.(T) George E. Wilcox, USCG.

This notably included responding to the tanker SS Herbert L Pratt, which struck a mine laid by U-151 off Cape Henlopen in June 1918.

SS Herbert L. Pratt (American tanker, 1918) under salvage after striking a mine off Cape Henlopen, southeast of Lewes, Delaware, on 3 June 1918. Note the tug alongside. This ship later served as USS Herbert L. Pratt (ID # 2339). U.S. History and Heritage Command Photograph NH 14

USS SC-71 and USS SP-544 (ex-yacht Sea Gull) tied up with another Section Patrol boat at the Cape May Naval Base, Sewells Point, New Jersey, circa 1918. The ship in the background is a Coast Guard Cutter, probably USCGC Morrill. A Curtiss HS-2L seaplane is taxiing by. NH 42452

Morrill in dry dock at Camden, New Jersey, in December 1918. Courtesy of D.M. McPherson, 1974. NH 79741

Back to a changing Coast Guard

After 21 months under Navy orders, Morrill returned to USCG duties and was reassigned to the Lakes Division on 28 August 1919.

The two-time warrior, back on her old Detroit station, resumed a quiet life of patrolling regatta, saving lives, and interdicting smuggling– the latter a task grown more common after the Volstead Act took effect in 1920 and Motown became a hotbed of bootlegging from Canada.

Morrill, 1921, Janes, showing her with two 6-pounders and assigned to Detroit

In October 1925, she was reassigned to Boston to serve as a mothership for small fast picket boats attempting to keep “Rum Row” under control just off Cape Cod. It was on the way to her new station that, while near Shelbourne, Nova Scotia, one of her whaleboats with 10 enlisted aboard overturned in the cold water while returning to the cutter at night from liberty ashore. Tragically, nine of them perished, one of the USCG’s worst peacetime losses of life. The bodies were later recovered and brought back to Boston by the cutter Tampa for proper burial.

Morrill would again suffer at the hands of the sea in November 1926 when she sliced in two the George O. Knowles Wharf in Provincetown, at the northern tip of Cape Cod, during a storm, causing $100,000 worth of damage ashore and leaving the cutter aground.

Via the Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell, Provincetown History Preservation Project.

Pulled off the shore at Provincetown, and was soon back to work. In April 1927, she came to the rescue of the grounded schooner Etta Burns, which turned out to be a rumrunner with 500 cases of booze aboard.

Morrill saved the crew– then put them in shackles.

With new 165 and 240-foot cutters on the way, Morrill was decommissioned at Boston on 19 October 1928, completing an almost 40-year career.

She was sold to the Deepwater Fishing and Exploration Corp. (Antonio De Domenico) of New York City for the princely sum of $7,100. Renamed Evangeline, it doesn’t seem she saw much commercial use as the former cutter burned to the waterline at Rockway, Long Island, on 30 July 1930.

Epilogue

Few relics of Morrill remain. The USCG chose not to name another cutter after her, despite her honorable record, including service in two wars. Her plans and logbooks are in the National Archives, although not digitized.

Morrill’s SpanAm War skipper, Horatio Davis Smith, extensively documented voyages of various cutters, including the cutter Golden Gate doing “good service” during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and transporting President Taft across the bay in 1909, and the cutter McCullough being the first to pass through the Suez Canal. He retired and later wrote an early history of the Revenue Marine Service. He passed in Massachusetts in 1918, aged 73.

Her Great War skipper, George E. Wilcox, went on to command the Coast Guard destroyer Downes out of New London– one of 31 destroyers that formed the Coast Guard Destroyer Force during the Rum War– and was head of the service’s Personnel Bureau when he passed in 1931, aged 50. He is buried at Arlington.

Several young officers served aboard our cutter who went on to make their mark on history. Besides the above-mentioned Godfrey Cardin— who led 1,400 men (fully one quarter of the mobilized service!) as the Captain of the Port of New York during the Great War, future admirals Joseph Francis Farley (a later USCG Commandant) and Detlef Frederick Argentine de Otte— a mustang who enlisted in the cutter service as a seaman in 1886 and retired in 1931 as one of just sixteen Commodores (later promoted to RADM on the retired list) in the history of the Coast Guard.

Morrill’s third lieutenant during the Mont Blanc disaster in Halifax, Henry G. Hemingway, later served as the gunnery officer aboard the USS San Diego in 1918 and survived the mining of that cruiser by the U-156. He went on to command the cutter Snohomish in 1923 during a search-and-rescue case off Port Angeles that defied belief and earned him the Gold Lifesaving Medal for his actions in saving the entire crew of the SS Nika during a gale.

Nicknamed “Soo Traffic,” the U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service St. Marys River carries the lineage of the old River Patrol Service, which Morrill joined in 1898, and is still in operation after almost 130 years. They logged some 61,532 vessels, including ferries, tour boats, tankers, and freighters, as they transited through the St. Marys River in 2010.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Bluejacket Cavalry!

Posted on October 21, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

The first Navy ship named for the capital of the state of Maryland and the location of the U.S. Naval Academy, USS Annapolis (Gunboat No. 10), was laid down on 18 April 1896 at Elizabethport, New Jersey, by Lewis Nixon and commissioned at New York on 20 July 1897.

U.S. Navy gunboat, USS Annapolis (PG-10), port view. Detroit Publishing Company, 1890-1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Lot 3000-K-20

She was a class leader of gunboats with three sisters (Vicksburg, Newport, and Princeton) built during the transition period of the maritime world: sail to steam and wood to steel. They used a composite hull construction of steel keel and frames, steel shell plating from main deck to waterline, and wood planking with copper sheathing to the keel.

She was designed by RADM Phillip Hichborn, chief constructor of the Bureau of Construction and Repair, with RADM George Wallace Melville, chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, designing her power plant– the latter a triple expansion reciprocating steam engine, better known as an “Up‐n‐Downer,” using steam supplied by two early water tube boilers at 180 psi.

The 203-foot steel-hulled barkentine-rigged three-masted steam gunboat carried a wallop in the form of six 4-inch breechloading guns, four QF 6-pounders, and two 1-pounders, plus, with a crew of 130 bluejackets, she could send a platoon-sized force ashore as light infantry (which we shall see) and still fight the ship. Best yet, she could float in just 13 feet of water, which allowed her to own a coastal littoral, when needed.

The 12-gun (6×4″, 4x6pdr, 2x1pdr) Composite gunboat USS Annapolis, 1895 plan NARA 19-N-12-17-4

Within a year, she was in service out of Key West enforcing the blockade on Cuba, helping to capture an enemy merchant ship and a British steamer with Spanish contraband. She also tag-teamed the Spanish gunboat Don Jorge Juan and sank same. She then sailed for the Far East and spent four years in those waters, primarily in the Philippine Islands.

Rebuilt at Mare Island from 1904-07, she would serve as the station ship in American Samoa until December 1911, when, returning to Mare Island, she was once again placed out of service.

Gunboat USS Annapolis off of San Francisco in 1912.

Then came a mission to Nicaragua, spending 11 months on a very muscular deployment to Central America, where her men logged one of the 136 instances of individual groups of bluejackets operating ashore as infantry (from squad to brigade level) between 1901 and May 1929. The spark that Annapolis was sent to contain was the coup d’état of General Luis Mena, Minister of War under President Alfonso Diaz, who thought he could do a better job than Diaz.

Amazingly, the gunboat landed a light company-sized force of Bluejackets, consisting of five officers and 90 men, under the command of LT James A. Campbell, Jr., U.S. Navy, at Corinto, which proceeded 90 miles by rail to Managua, Nicaragua, to serve as a legation guard and to protect American interests. They spent three months detached and were soon reinforced by other naval landing forces along with Major Smedly Butler’s Marine battalion, the latter consisting of 13 officers and 341 men. LCDR William Daniel Leahy (USNA 97), the battleship USS California’s gunnery officer, became the chief of staff of the expeditionary force and the commander of the small garrison at Corinto.

Expeditionary Force “Bluejackets” disembarking at Corinto, Nicaragua, from USS Annapolis (Patrol Gunboat #10), August 29, 1912. Collection of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Jr.

Expeditionary Force, “Bluejackets” at Leon, Nicaragua, from USS Annapolis (Patrol Gunboat #10), August 29, 1912. Collection of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Jr. NMUSN-P-D-2015-1-9

Expeditionary Force, “Bluejacket Calvary [sic]” at Corinto, Nicaragua, from USS Annapolis (Patrol Gunboat #10), August 29, 1912. Collection of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Jr. NMUSN-P-D-2015-1-11

“Insurrectos – Barricading Street, note the automatic, which seems to be a Vickers gun, at Corinto, Nicaragua, from USS Annapolis (Patrol Gunboat #10), August 29, 1912. Collection of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Jr.

As further detailed by DANFS:

Annapolis remained at Mare Island until recommissioned on 1 May 1912, Cmdr. Warren J. Terhune in command.

Sometime in May, the warship moved south to San Diego, whence she departed on the 21st and headed for the coast of Central America. She arrived off the coast of Nicaragua, at Corinto, on 13 June. Conditions in that Central American republic had been unstable throughout the first decade of the 20th century, but after 1910, became increasingly worse as three factions vied with each other for power. By the summer of 1912, General Estrada, more or less democratically elected under American auspices, had been forced out of office. His vice president, Adolfq Diaz, took over his duties, but by the end of July, full-scale civil war raged in Nicaragua. Annapolis returned to the Corinto area on 1 August following a six-week cruise along the coasts of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

The gunboat remained at Corinto for the following four months, periodically sending landing parties ashore to protect Americans’ lives and property and to restore order in areas where Americans were located. On 9 December, she departed Nicaraguan waters to return to San Francisco, where, after stops at Acajutla, El Salvador, and at San Diego, Calif., she arrived on 30 December. That same day, the warship entered the Mare Island Navy Yard for repairs.

She completed repairs late in January 1913 and returned to sea on the 20th. The gunboat made a 16-day stop at San Diego before resuming her voyage to Central American waters on 7 February. Annapolis arrived at Amapala, Honduras, on 17 February and remained there until 9 March. After a short cruise to the Gulf of Fonseca and to Petosi in Nicaragua on 9 and 10 March, she returned to Amapala on the 10th and remained there until 23 April.

Annapolis would spend the next several years poking around Mexican waters during the cyclical series of revolutions and civil wars between 1914 and 1918, after which she served in the American Patrol during the Great War.

Annapolis was placed out of commission at Mare Island in 1919, and the next year was towed via the Panama Canal to Philadelphia, where she was turned over to the Pennsylvania State Nautical School as a floating school ship, on a loan basis, for the next 20 years.

ex-USS Annapolis, Pennsylvania’s ‘schoolship’, as she looked in 1922 while anchored in the Delaware River

When WWII came, she was turned over to the Maritime Commission for disposal in 1940 and, in poor condition, was later scrapped.

By that time, a second Annapolis had joined the fleet.

But that is another story.

Warship Wednesday, June 25, 2025: Rozhestvensky’s Pirates

Posted on June 25, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland One comment

Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile 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

Warship Wednesday, June 25, 2025: Rozhestvensky’s Pirates

Above we see the Imperial Russian Navy’s auxiliary cruiser (vspomogatel’nyy kreyser) Terek, formerly the Royal Spanish Navy’s cruiser Rapido, formerly the Hamburg America Line steamer SS Columbia,

Terek just narrowly avoided combat in 1898 under the yellow and red Pabellon de la Armada, but some 120 years ago this week, she would land the final Tsarist Russian blows against the Empire of Japan at sea.

Kinda

The Tsar’s auxiliary cruisers

When war broke out with Japan in February 1904, the Russian admiralty activated its long-standing plans to cough up a series of armed merchant cruisers. Originally intended in the 1880s and 1890s to chase down British merchantmen should the “Great Game” turn hot, the Russians were able to activate nine large rakish steamers, all capable of making over 18.5 knots. Almost all (six of nine) were three-funnel liners, and all had been built as fine 1st class ships in the best German and British yards. In peacetime, they were operated by Dobroflot, the Russian state-controlled “Volunteer Fleet,” then switched to Navy crews during war.

These nine AMCs activated were generally named after rivers or Cossack hosts that lived along their banks, including: Angara (12,050 tons), Lena (10,675 t), Kuban (12,000 t), Don (10,500 t), Ural (10,500 t), Dnepr (9,500 t), Rion (14,614 t), Rus (8,600 t) and our Terek (10,000 t).

The main batteries typically consisted of a few 120mm/45 (4.7″) Pattern 1892 Canet guns augmented by a secondary of 75mm/50 (2.9″) Pattern 1892 Canet guns and a tertiary of 57mm/6-pdr, 47mm/3-pdr, or 37mm/1-pdr Hotchkiss counter-boat guns. Dedicated magazine space was set aside and rigged for emergency flooding if needed. As their promenade decks didn’t lend well to gun emplacements, most were arranged on the fore and aft well decks, with smaller guns on the poop and forecastle.

4.7-inch guns on auxiliary cruiser Lena

As the cruisers had at least two military masts complete with lookout tops, they would typically carry at least a 1-pounder in each. Two to four large searchlights were fitted as well.

The Illustrated London News on October 8, 1904, details the “Russian Menace to Neutral Shipping” during the Russo-Japanese War, focusing on converted cruisers in neutral waters, including Lena (Kherson), Terek, Peterburg (Dnepr), and Smolensk (Rion).

The presence of these Russian cruisers in neutral ports, particularly the well-armed Lena (35 guns in four diverse batteries), which called at San Francisco in late 1904, caused a huge surge in war risk insurances for vessels of all flags bound for Japan, threatening a general halt in shipments.

Fresno Bee, Sept 14, 1904

Russian auxiliary cruiser Lena in San Francisco, November 1904. Built in 1896 by Hawthorn Leslie, Newcastle– at the time the largest ship built on the Tyne– she sailed with the Volunteer Fleet in peacetime as Kherson. Activated in late 1903 as tensions with Japan grew, she operated out of Vladivostok until she arrived at San Francisco for repairs in September 1904 and was eventually interned for the rest of the war. She later served as Naval Transport N73 in the Black Sea Fleet, then, evacuating Russia with Wrangel’s White navy in 1920, had a short career with the London Steamship & Trading Co, then was broken up in Venice in 1925.

Besides acting as scouts and raiders, a role well-suited to the force due to their large ocean-crossing coal bunkers, they also had lots of spare room in their peacetime passenger cabins to accommodate troops for use as a fast transport, or captured enemy mariners. One, Rus, was used as a balloon aircraft carrier, toting nine Parseval-Sigsfeld kite balloons and making 186 controlled ascents from her deck.

Sailing as a scouting unit with Russian ADM Rozhestvensky’s 2nd Pacific Squadron on its way to its destiny at Tsushima, several also bagged some prizes.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s turn this story back a bit.

Meet Columbia

Ordered in 1888, an express steamer of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) line, the Doppelschrauben-Schnelldampfer Columbia was intended to compete with the fastest liners of the British shipping companies. Built to the same plans as her AG Vulcan-built sister, SS Augusta Victoria, who claimed the fastest maiden voyage across the Atlantic in an east-west direction in May 1889, Columbia was fast.

Some 480 feet overall with a narrow 55-foot beam and knife-like bow, she was HAPAG’s second twin-screw express steamer on the North Atlantic. Equipped with twin VTR engines fed by nine boilers good for 13,300 shp, she made 20.5 knots on trials.

From The Engineer, 8 Nov 1889:

Some 7,300 GRT, she had accommodations for 1,100 passengers (400 first-class, 120 second-class, and 580 third-class).

German maritime artist Alexander Kircher penned several illustrations aboard the Columbia for the publication Die Rudermaschine in 1890.

A series of interior and exterior views upon delivery is in the collection of the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University.

However, she and her sister were ready for war if needed. Following the government subsidy provided by the Imperial Postal Steamer agreement (Reichspostdampfervertrages), the Reich could use these steamers in the event of mobilization, and ships built for the service had to pass a Kaiserliche Marine inspection, including weight and space for deck guns and magazines. We saw how this played out with a host of German auxiliary cruisers in 1914 in past Warship Wednesdays.

Columbia was delivered to HAPAG in June 1889 and began her maiden voyage from Hamburg via Southampton to New York on 18 July. Importantly, in July 1895, Columbia and Augusta Victoria transported the guests of honor at the opening of the Kiel Canal.

Besides the American runs, the sisters would cruise in winter to the Mediterranean, in midsummer north to Spitsbergen, and from 1896 also to the West Indies.

It was postcard and poster worthy.

War! (under a Spanish banner)

With Madrid in dire need of modern ships for their looming clash with the U.S., three weeks before war was declared, on 8 April 1898, HAPAG sold the proud Columbia and the slightly larger Normannia to Spain. Normannia became the Spanish auxiliary cruiser Patriota, armed with four 12 cm/L40 Skoda rapid-firing guns and ten 47 mm/L44 QF guns, while the speedy Columbia would enter Spanish service as the auxiliary cruiser Rapido. Her skipper was Capt. Federico Campaño y Rosset.

In Spanish service, Columbia/Rapido would carry four 16.2cm/35s, two 14cm/35s, and six 47 mm/L44s. The conversion, no doubt easy due to the weight and space reserved for guns and shells in her design, only took 12 days.

Originally part of Gruppo E of the Reserve Squadron, intended for action against American lines of communication along the Atlantic coast, both Columbia/Rapido and Normannia/Patriota were reassigned to RADM Manuel de la Camara’s relief squadron for the Philippines six weeks after Dewey had destroyed RADM Patricio Montojo’s Spanish Pacific Squadron.

Sailing in line with the strongest Spanish ship in the fleet, the 11,000-ton 12-inch gunned battlewagon Pelayo; the armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V, destroyers Audaz, Osado, and Proserpina; and the troop-packed transports Buenos Aires and Panay, the force left Cadiz on 16 June 1898 and made Egypt ten days later, only to fight for coal with the English there for a week.

RADM Manuel de la Camara’s fleet under steam. Columbia/Rapido, with three masts and three stacks, is to the far left with Normannia/Patriota ahead of her. Original Location: Stanley Cohen, Images of the Spanish-American War (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Pub. Co., 1997). Via NHHC.

Rapido, Spanish auxiliary cruiser, at Port Said, Egypt, 26 June – 4 July 1898, while serving with Rear Admiral Manuel de la Camara’s squadron, which had been sent to relieve the Philippines. Copied from the Office of Naval Intelligence Album of Foreign Warships. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 88730

Camara’s squadron in the Suez Canal in 1898. Pelayo is in the foreground, with the rest of his fleet, Columbia/Rapido (visible between Pelayo’s masts) and Normannia/Patriota included. NHHC WHI.2014.36x

However, with Spanish VADM Pascual Cervera’s squadron’s defeat at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July, and the fear that metropolitan Spain was left defenseless, Camara’s squadron was recalled home just as it made the Red Sea. Spending the rest of the war in European waters, Columbia/Rapido and Normannia/Patriota were later used as troop transport to help bring the defeated Spanish forces home from the lost colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico, shepherding (often towing) eight smaller, often derelict, vessels behind them back to Cadiz with stops in Martinique and the Canary Islands.

The Spanish admiralty having no further use for Columbia/Rapido, she was disarmed and sold back to HAPAG on 6 July 1899 for a nominal fee. Her career in Spanish service spanned just under 15 months and, as far as I can tell, she never fired a shot in anger during this period.

Meanwhile, Normannia/Patriota was given to the French government to resolve war debts. Renamed L’ Aquitaine, the former Normannia entered service with the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) line in December 1899, and, in poor condition, was scrapped in 1906.

Under a Russian flag

Following a refit and a fresh coat of paint, Columbia spent the next four years in a shuffle of commercial runs from Hamburg via Southampton and Cherbourg to New York.

It was while on a run to the Big Apple in May 1904 that HAPAG unceremoniously sold Columbia, along with her sister Auguste Victoria and the liner Furst Bismarck, for 7.5 million rubles to the Russian Navy, in need of hulls to take the fight to the Japanese. At the same time, NDL sold the Russians the fast little (6963 BRT) liner Kaiserin Maria Theresia.

Auguste Victoria became the Russian auxiliary cruiser Kuban, Furst Bismarck became the cruiser Don, and Kaiserin Maria Theresia the cruiser Ural.

Columbia departed New York after discharging her passengers for the Russian naval base at Libau (now Liepaja, Latvia) in the Baltic, joining Auguste Victoria, Furst Bismarck, and Kaiserin Maria Theresia, who had arrived earlier.

Terek in Libau 1904. Note that the other auxiliary cruisers are in dark military livery

At Libau, Columbia’s German civil crew took trains for the frontier while dock workers began the conversion process. Her deck was additionally reinforced, magazines for ammunition and devices for feeding shells to the upper deck were equipped. Some of the rooms in the emigrant class cabins were adapted to accommodate additional supplies of coal, fresh water, and food. Hatches were cut out for coaling at sea, a task rarely performed by ocean liners. To protect the engines and boilers from enemy shells, additional steel sheets were installed. Columbia was also equipped with additional equipment: two combat searchlights, a powerful wireless telegraph station, etc.

Columbia’s armament was lighter than in Spanish service, consisting of just two 12 cm L/45s, four 7.5 cm L/50s, eight 5.7 cm Hotchkiss guns, and two Maxim machine guns. The Russian naval staff had initially intended for each of the three new-to-them German-made auxiliary cruisers to carry fourteen 6-inch guns, but the ordnance just wasn’t available.

Our subject was named Terek after the fierce Cossack host on the river of the same name in the Caucasus region.

Terek Cossacks

Terek’s inaugural Russian skipper was Capt. (2nd rank) Konstantin Aleksandrovich Panferov, a 44-year-old career officer who had joined the fleet as a 14-year-old midshipman and had earned sea legs on everything from schooners to armored cruisers. His father, Aleksandr Konstantinovich, was friends with Nakhimov, took part in the Siege of Sevastopol as a battery commander, and retired as a rear admiral.

The rest of the wardroom was light, just four lieutenants and a dozen or so warrant officers and midshipmen rushed into service. Her sole surgeon was seconded from a teaching position at a Petersburg university. The new (again) cruiser’s crew of just over 400 was drawn from depots all over Russia.

As described by a Russian Tsushima veteran, Capt. Vladimir Ivanovich Semenov, of this force, “The naivety is almost touching…”

While Auguste Victoria/Kuban and Furst Bismarck/Don were repainted from their commercial livery to a heavy grey/green scheme, there wasn’t either enough time or paint left to do the same for Terek, and she sailed as-is.

War (against Japan, kinda)

Sent out from Libau on 12 August 1904 to hunt for Japanese merchant ships (or those of other flags carrying Japan-related contraband), Terek sortied out into the Atlantic before making Las Palmas, Vigo, and Lisbon for resupply then haunted the approaches to Gibraltar before she arrived back in the Baltic on 8 October, covering 9,190nm and inspecting 15 suspect vessels with no prizes. She earned enough attention from harassing ships with Red Dusters to be shadowed by the British cruisers HMS St. George and Brilliant.

Terek overhauling the British merchant ship Derwen off Cape St. Vincent (Cabo de San Vicente) off southern Portugal, August 1904.

As noted by Patrick J. Rollins in the 1994 Naval War College Review: “In August 1904, the three largest shipping firms in England, including the great P&O Line, suspended service to Japan. By the end of August, insurance rates on British ships bound for the Far East stood at 20 shillings per hundred, or four times the rate charged to the French and Germans.”

Terek was selected, along with her sister Auguste Victoria/Kuban and the auxiliary cruiser Kaiserin Maria Theresia/Ural, to join VADM Zinoy Rozhestvensky’s “2nd” Pacific Squadron, which was just the Russian Baltic Fleet, on its ill-fated mission to relieve besieged Port Arthur in the Pacific.

However, due to the nature of Rozhestvensky’s straggling fleet, Terek was not released to join the squadron until 18 November, following Ural, which had left four days earlier, and Kuban, which had sailed a full three weeks prior. Sailing around the Cape of Good Hope via Dakar, Terek only managed to link up with Kuban and Ural off Madagascar in January 1905. Dnepr (ex-Petersburg) and Rion (ex-Smolensk), who had spent the summer harassing British shipping off the East Coast of Africa, joined them. The five ersatz cruisers formed the fleet’s Reconnaissance Detachment.

By that time, Port Arthur had fallen and, much like Camara’s squadron in 1898, you would expect Rozhestvensky to be recalled back home. However, this was not to be, and the force, after weeks in Madagascar, was ordered to attempt to run past the Japanese to Vladivostok.

Another of the nine Russian auxiliary cruisers, Angara, was lost in the fall of Port Arthur, pounded into the mud by Japanese heavy artillery.

Once in the Pacific, Rion and Dnepr were detailed to escort a group of transports to Shanghai, then break off for commerce raiding along Japan’s sea lanes in the southern part of the Yellow Sea.

Ural would accompany the main force and would soon end up on the bottom.

According to Rozhestvensky’s order No. 380 of 21 May, the Kuban and Terek were to sail ahead and feint around the east of Japan and work in the area between the island of Shikoku and Yokohama. The cruisers were ordered to “without hesitation sink” all steamships on which military contraband would be noticed, a plan surely designed to draw Japanese Admiral Togo’s forces away from the Tsushima straits.

As noted by Semenov at the time back with the main fleet on 22 May, five days before the run through Tsushima, “Yesterday, the Kuban, and today the Terek, separated from the squadron to cruise off the eastern shores of Japan. May God grant them more noise.”

Kuban spent three weeks off Japan, in terrible weather, and only managed to close with two freighters, the German steamer Surabaya, carrying a cargo of flour from Hamburg to Vladivostok of all places, and the unladen Austrian freighter Ladroma. Down to her last 1,800 tons of coal, and finding out about the destruction of the 2nd Pacific Squadron from the latest issue of the Singapore Free Press newspaper aboard Ladroma, Kuban’s skipper called it quits and sailed for Saigon for coal, then made it back to Libau alone on 3 August.

Rion was able to break a few eggs, so to speak, after the battle. On 30 May, some 60 miles from Cape Shantung, she detained the German steamship Tetartos (2409 GRT), heading from Otaru to Tianjin with railway sleepers and fish, and sank it the next morning. Four days later, while 80 miles from Wusung, she stopped the English steamship Cilurnum (2123 GRT), heading from Shanghai to Moji. The steamship was released after its cargo of beans and cotton was thrown over the side. Her war over, Rion sailed for home, arriving in Kronstadt on 30 July.

Dnepr came across the British steamer St Kilda (3519 GRT) off Hong Kong on 5 June with a cargo that included rice, sugar, and gunnies bound for Yokohama. She then sent said steamer to Davy Jones and landed the crew back in Hong Kong before heading back home.

This left our Terek to strike the last blows. She did so against the British-flagged Ikhona (5252 GRT) of the Indian Steam Navigation Company on 5 June while north of Hong Kong in the Philippine Sea, during the latter’s voyage from Rangoon to Yokohama with a cargo of rice and mail. Taking off the crew, the shipwrecked mariners were transferred to the passing Dutch steamer Periak at sea two weeks later and eventually landed at Singapore. The ship’s skipper, one Capt. Stone reported that the capture and sinking had taken six long hours, with dynamite charges failing to scuttle the steamer before Terek opened up with “quick-firers.”

Ikhona was the fourth British ship lost to the Russians during the conflict after SS Knight Commander, St. Kilda, and the schooner Hip Sang. His majesty’s government later pursued a claim of £250,000 against Russia for the value of the ships and their cargoes, with Ikhona being the most expensive at £100,000.

Continuing in the South China Sea, on 22 June 1905, Terek came across the unlikely victim that was the Kiel-built Danish East Asiatic Company steamer Prinsesse Marie (5416 tons), bound with cargo for Japan, and sank the same. Another bloodless kill by old school “cruiser rules,” her crew was taken off and brought to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies a week later. With the Dutch refusing Terek coal, the Russian cruiser ended her sortie there and was interned for three months until the Treaty of Portsmouth ended the war. Capt. Panferov dutifully offered his flag and sword to the local Dutch naval commander, who refused them.

Det Østasiatiske Kompagni Prinsesse Marie

Ironically, the Danish EAC protested the sinking of Prinsesse Marie under the pretext that, while her cargo was bound for a Japanese port, it was manifested to go to a European concern. It’s possible the Tsar, his mother being a Danish princess, made that one right in the end.

Returning home to Russia, on 10 December 1905, an order was received to Kuban, Terek, and Don of “all weapons and things related to naval affairs,” and investigate the possibility of selling the ships.

On 18 November 1906, by order of the fleet and the Naval Department No. 300, the Terek and her sister Kuban were excluded from the naval lists and were handed over to the port of Libau pending auction. The following February, Vosidlo and Co. paid 442,150 rubles for both vessels and sent them to Stettin to be cut up for scrap metal.

Epilogue

Terek could arguably be listed as one of the most successful ships on the Tsarist side of the Russo-Japanese War. A huge 1:48 scale model of the ship was crafted for the Russian Naval Museum in St. Petersburg following the campaign. Although damaged by fire during German bombs in WWII, it remains on display.

Terek’s only wartime Russian skipper, Panferov, earned both the Order of St. Anne, 2nd degree, and the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree for his service on the cruiser. Promoted to Capt. 1st Rank in 1908, then, switching to a shoreside non-line duty, by 1913, rose to the rank of major general. During the Great War, as chief quartermaster of Kronstadt, he earned the St. Anne 1st degree in 1916. One of the rare senior officers retained by the Red Navy post-revolution, he retired in 1919.

Russian Navy MG Konstantin Aleksandrovich Panferov. His son, Georgy Konstantinovich Panferov, went on to become a surgeon colonel during WWII and a professor at the Naval Medical Academy (VMMA). His grandson, Yuri Georgievich Panferov, followed in his footsteps and became an officer in the Red Banner fleet.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Warship Wednesday, April 9, 2025: First of a Long Line

Posted on April 9, 2025 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Warship Wednesday, April 9, 2025: First of a Long Line

Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 310

Above, we see the unique U.S. Revenue Cutter Windom circa 1900. She had already fought in one war under Navy orders, would go on to carry a “USS” during WWI, bust rum-runners, and chart a course for the modern Coast Guard.

Not bad for a 170-foot ship.

A New Era

In 1890, the Revenue Cutter Service– the forerunner of the USCG– was celebrating its centennial, having been authorized as part of the Treasury Department in 1790. Having fought during the Quasi War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, the USRCS had a long history of suiting up for combat when needed.

It was a busy force.

In 1890, the 36 assorted cutters of the service had cruised a total of 301,416 nautical miles, boarded and examined 26,962 vessels for revenue purposes, and assisted 123 distressed vessels, saving a value of $2,806,056 in ships and cargoes on the sea. They did everything that year from chasing down seal poachers in the Bering Sea to breaking up smuggling rings along the Florida Keys and arresting murderers on the high seas.

However, it was stuck in the 19th century while pointing towards the 20th and was obsolete. Most of the 36 cutters were small (under 100 foot) sloops, luggers, and tugs, capable of harbor and coastal patrols at best. The more blue water of the fleet were typically iron-hulled topsail steam schooners (USRC Gallatin, Hamilton, Boutwell, Dallas, Dexter, Rush, Corwin, and Forward) of about 140 feet in length. Two big steamers with auxiliary rigs, the 165-foot USRC Perry and the 198-foot USRC Bear, were dedicated to the far-off Alaska patrol. A couple of more modern twin-screwed steam cutters, the 145-foot USRC Morrill and the 190-foot USRC Galveston, were just coming online.

Armament in many cases was simply whatever could be scrounged from the Navy’ that was small enough to carry and service without lifts, typically 3-pounder 47mm or 6-pounder 57mm breechloading mounts, while smaller cutters usually just carried small arms. Speaking of which, trapdoor Springfield conversions and S&W cartridge revolvers were the norm. Some older cutters carried breechloading 3-inch Ordnance conversions of Civil War-era cannon.

USRC Corwin departing for Alaska in 1887. She was a 140-foot topsail schooner-rigged iron-hulled steamer that exemplified the cutter service in 1890. She carried a single 6-pounder.

As noted by the SECNAV at the time, Benjamin Franklin Tracy, “At present this large fleet of small vessels is constructed without any reference to the necessities of modern warfare.”

Pioneering a new age of steel cruising cutters for the service, capable of serving as a gunboat for the Navy in times of war, would be our USRC Windom.

Modern for her era, she was the first cutter constructed with a fully watertight hull, longitudinal and transverse bulkheads, and a triple expansion steam plant capable of 15 knots sustained speed.

She would carry a twin schooner auxiliary rig, at least at first

Designed to service Chesapeake Bay, Windom would displace 412 tons, have a length of 170 feet, eight inches overall, and an extreme beam of 27 feet. Her normal draught, carrying 50 tons of coal aboard, would be 6.5 fee,t while her hold was 13.5 deep.

Her twin inverted cylinder, direct-acting, triple-expansion steam engines (11 3-4, 16 1-2, and 26 1-2 cylinders with a 24-inch stroke) were designed by the Navy’s Bureau of Steam Engineering under orders of Commodore George Melville and were “regarded in engineering circles as more advanced in type than any in the Revenue Cutter Service. They drove twin cast-iron propellers and could generate 800 hp at 175 rpm. They drew steam via a single tubular double-ended horizontal 16×12 foot boiler.

Her battery was one installed 6-pounder RF Hotchkiss with weight and space for a 3-inch or 4-inch BL and a second 6-pounder as well. Small arms of a “modern type” would be provided for the 45-member crew.

Revenue Cutter Windom, Port Arthur, Texas

The design of Windom would lead the service to order five so-called Propeller class cutters, which were larger and faster (as well as costing about twice as much per hull) at 18 knots. These vessels, to the same overall concept but each slightly different in design, were built to carry a bow-mounted torpedo tube for 15-inch Bliss-Whitehead type torpedoes (although they appeared to have not been fitted with the weapons) and as many as four modern quick-firing 3-inch guns (though they typically used just two 6-pounder, 57mm popguns in peacetime).

These ships included:

–McCulloch, a barquentine-rigged, composite-hulled, 219-foot, 1,280-ton steamer ordered from William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia for $196,000. She was the longest of the type as she was intended for Pacific service and so was designed with larger coal bunkers.

–Gresham, a brigantine-rigged 206-foot, 1,090-ton steel-hulled steamer built by the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $147,800.

–Manning, a brigantine-rigged 205-foot, 1,150-ton steamer ordered from the Atlantic Works Company of East Boston, MA, for a cost of $159,951.

–Algonquin, brigantine-rigged 205.5-foot, 1,180-ton steel-hulled steamer ordered from the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $193,000.

–Onondaga, brigantine-rigged 206-foot, 1,190-ton steel-hulled steamer ordered from the Globe Iron Works Company of Cleveland, OH for $193,800.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Windom

Our subject, in frequent USRC/USCG practice, was named for a past secretary of the U.S. Treasury, in this case, William Windom. A long-term U.S. Congressman (1859-1869) and Senator (1870-1881, 81-83) from Minnesota, he served as the Treasury boss under James A. Garfield for nine months in 1881 and then again under Benjamin Harrison from 1889 through 1891, passing in office at age 63. He successfully helped defeat a push to transfer the Cutter Service to the Navy

The Honorable William Windom, of Minnesota, left, while in Congress compared to his official portrait as Secretary of the Treasury in the Garfield administration. NARA 165-A-3716 & LOC LC-DIG-cwpbh-03920

Honoring the late Mr. Windom, the Treasury Department carried his engraved portrait on the $2 U.S. Silver Certificate from 1891 to 1896, while the USRCS named its groundbreaking new cutter after him.

Ordered from the Iowa Iron Works, Dubuque, for $98,500, with delivery to be made down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico and then to Key West. The plates, frames, angle irons, and castings employed in the hull were furnished by the West Superior Steel Works of Wisconsin, while William Cramp built her engines.

Accepted by the Treasury Department on 11 May 1896, she was moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she completed fitting out and was placed in commission on 30 June 1896.

Her initial skipper was Capt. Samuel Edmondson Maguire, a 54-year-old Marylander who had joined the Revenue Cutter Service in 1871 as a third lieutenant after carpetbagging in Louisiana during Reconstruction. Maguire had volunteered during the Civil War as a private in Company C of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, the famed Zouaves d ‘Afrique, and was wounded at Fredericksburg.

In October 1896, Windom was tasked with keeping guard over the notorious gun-running steamer Dauntless.

Impounded at sea by the cruiser USS Raleigh off Florida after a run to arm rebels fighting against the Spanish in Cuba, Windom guarded the filibuster mothership until the Collector of Customs released the libeled Dauntless, after paying a $200 fine for lying to off the coast with no lights, to resume her illicit activities. Windom joined the cutters, Boutwell and Colfax, through the end of the year in Florida waters, based on the St. John River, to run interference against other filibuster boats headed for Cuba, impounding the steamers Kate Spencer and Three Friends in November.

Besides filibuster-busting, Windom spent the first 17 months of her career in quiet operations on the Chesapeake and patrolling the fishing grounds between the Virginia capes and Cape Hatteras.

Then came…

War with Spain!

On 24 March 1898, with the drums of war beating with Spain, President McKinley ordered the cutters Gresham, Manning, Windom, Woodbury, Hamilton, Morrill, Hudson, Guthrie, and Calumet, “with their officers and crews, be placed under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy.” This was later augmented by the Corwin, Grant, Perry, McCulloch, and Rush in the Pacific, as well as the McLane, Onondaga, and Winona, with at least 20 cutters on Navy and Army (Coastal Artillery) orders during the short conflict.

As noted by the Secretary of the Treasury after the conflict from the USRCS’s thin volume on the war:

There were in cooperation with the Navy 13 revenue cutters, carrying 61 guns, 98 officers, and 562 enlisted men. Of these, 8 cutters (43 guns), 58 officers, and 339 men were in Admiral Sampson’s fleet and on the Havana blockade; 1 cutter (6 guns), 10 officers, and 95 men were in Admiral Dewey’s fleet at Manila, and 4 cutters (12 guns), 30 officers, and 128 men cooperated with the Navy on the Pacific coast.

In addition to services rendered by vessels with the naval forces, there were 7 others, carrying 10 guns, 33 officers, and 163 men, with the Army, engaged in patrolling and guarding mine fields in various harbors, from Boston to Mobile and New Orleans.

Two days after the transfer order from McKinley, Windom, at Hampton Roads at the time, received orders to report at Norfolk and was there on 25 April when Congress passed the resolution recognizing that a state of war existed between the United States and Spain. She was painted gray and fitted with a four-inch main gun and a second 6-pounder.

USRC Windom in drydock at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 9 April 1898. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives. 19-N-19-21-12

Windom’s wardroom during the war, in addition to Maguire, included:

First Lieutenant F. G. F. Wadsworth, executive officer
Second Lieutenant Richard Owens Crisp, navigator
Second Lieutenant S. P. Edmunds
Third Lieutenant J. V. Wild
Chief Engineer C. F. Coffin
First Assistant Engineer C. W. Zastrow
Second Assistant Engineer Edwin W. Davis
Surgeon John C. Travis (March 29 to August 1, 1898)
Surgeon W. E. Handy (August 2 to August 29, 1898)

On 30 April, Windom departed Hampton Roads on her way to the blockade off Cuba, stopping at Key West briefly before arriving off Cuba on 8 May.

Assigned to Commodore Howell’s 1st Squadron, she patrolled the southern coast of Cuba near Cienfuegos until the 13 May, cutting the two Cienfuegos cables. She also helped cover the withdrawal of the Navy small boat raid to the cable house ashore (the Battle at Punta de la Colorados), closing with a Spanish battery and plastering it with 4-inch fire, scattering assembled local infantry. She also reportedly destroyed the lighthouse there, which was being used as an observation post by the Spanish, with her 6-pounders.

In all, Windom’s battery fired 85 rounds that day.

Her efforts helped allow 51 of the 53 Sailors and Marines dispatched from the cruiser USS Marblehead and gunboat USS Nashville to return to their vessels alive, and the cutter afterward evacuated several of the more seriously wounded bluejackets to Key West.

From her official report of the incident:

Windom then, after a respite at Key West, assumed station off Havana on 28 May, holding the line through August, chasing four Spanish blockade runners in June.

Hostilities ended on 13 August, and Windom reverted to Treasury Department control four days later. Arriving at Norfolk, she soon transferred newly installed guns to the USRC Gresham, returning to her pre-war appearance by October.

Maguire, the former Pennsylvania Zouave, remained in the service until 1906, when he retired as a senior captain, closing out 35 years of service to the Treasury Department. He passed in Patchogue, New York, in 1916, aged 73.

Return to Peace

Following the end of the Spanish-American War, Windom was soon back on her normal beat along the Chesapeake, including patrolling the America’s Cup Races in 1903.

In 1906, she transferred to Galveston to replace the cutter of the same name.

January 27, 1908. Photograph of the canal in Port Arthur, Texas. People stand along the shore. Boats are pulled over to the shore. The Revenue Cutter Windom is in the background. Heritage House Museum Local Control No: hhm_01293.

Working the length of the Gulf of Mexico from Key West to Brownsville, she returned to Maryland in September 1911 for a refit that saw her placed in ordinary for six weeks.

Back in Galveston, she was the first vessel to transit the newly opened Houston Ship Channel on 10 November 1914. President Wilson fired a cannon via remote control to officially mark the channel as open for operations. A band played the National Anthem from a barge in the center of the Turning Basin while Sue Campbell, daughter of Houston Mayor Ben Campbell, sprinkled white roses into the water from Windom’s top deck and decreed, “I christen thee Port of Houston; hither the boats of all nations may come and receive hearty welcome.”

USRC Windom in the Houston Ship Channel

In January 1915, Windom again entered ordinary in Maryland for an extensive one-year rebuild that saw her coal-fired boilers replaced by more efficient Babcock & Wilcox oil-fired models and her bunkers converted. This mid-life service extension saw her emerge with a new name: the USRC Comanche, soon to be the USCGC Comanche.

Recommissioned on 8 January 1916, Windom/Comanche returned to the Gulf and was deemed the Krewe of Rex’s royal yacht for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Windom as USCGC Comanche

View of the royal yacht “Comanche” as it prepares to dock at the foot of Canal Street on the Monday before Mardi Gras 1916

War with Germany!

With the U.S. entry into the Great War, Comanche was transferred from the Coast Guard to the Navy on 6 April 1917. She soon picked up another large deck gun, this time a 3″/50 Mk II. Her crew was bumped from 49 to 76 to allow for more watch standers and gun crew.

Commissioned as USS Comanche on 11 April 1917, she performed patrol duties in the New Orleans area under the command of LT Robert Ferriday Spangenberg, USNRF, until the summer of 1919.

Comanche was stricken from the Navy List on 1 August 1919 and returned to the Treasury Department on 28 August 1919.

Twilight

Wearing her white scheme once again, Comanche continued her patrols of the Gulf for another seven months and then headed for Key West where she was decommissioned on 17 April 1920 for repairs.

USRC Windom Gulf of Mexico NARA 56-AR-049

Recommissioned in July 1920, the ship relieved the USCGC Tallapoosa at Mobile and rejoined the Gulf Division. There, she was active in the campaign against bootleggers bringing contraband liquor up from the Caribbean during Prohibition.

Comanche Commonwealth Lib 2002-013-002-029

Comanche Commonwealth Lib 2002-013-002-048

Arthur S. Graham – Ralph A. Dett – Albert T. Chase – Brady S. Lindsay with barrels of confiscated 195% liquor while serving on the U.S. Revenue Cutter Comanche off Texas, circa 1920. Digital Commonwealth 2002.013.002.039.

Serving successively at Mobile, Key West, and Galveston, she patrolled coastal waters constantly until June of 1930. During that period, she left the Gulf of Mexico only once, in 1923, for repairs at Baltimore and Norfolk.

In July 1927, while at sea 170 miles southeast of Galveston, she suffered a blaze in her fireroom that left her adrift and her radio room silent, the ship’s generators offline. Towed into port by a tug a week later, she was apparently never restored to her pre-blaze condition.

On 2 June 1930, she was detached from the Gulf Division and was ordered back to Arundel Cove for the final time.

She arrived at her destination on 1 July and was placed out of commission on the 31st. She was sold to Weiss Motor Lines of Baltimore on 13 November 1930 for a paltry $4,501.

While Weiss possibly kept her in service for a time longer, I cannot find her mentioned in Lloyds from the era. Odds are, with the downturn in the economy in the early 1930s leading to the Depression, and the aftermath of the 1927 fire never addressed, she was probably just scrapped.

Epilogue

Little remains of Winston/Comanche that I can find.

Some of her plans and papers are digitized in the National Archives.

The Coast Guard recycled the name “Comanche” for two subsequent cutters (served 1934-48 and 1959-1980) that we have profiled in the past.

Comanche seen on 26 November 1934, post-delivery but before commissioning in a rare period color photo. Note she does not have her Navy-owned main and secondary batteries fitted yet but does have her gleaming white hull, buff stack and masts, and black cap.

During WWII, a Maritime Commission Liberty ship (MC hull no. 516, 7194 GRT) was named SS William Windom. Entering service in early 1943, she dodged Scharnhorst on Arctic convoys, landed cargo at Normandy, and survived the war to be scrapped in 1964.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

***

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Beat the Rush!

Posted on November 8, 2024 by laststandonzombieisland 3 comments

Summer of 1910, Cordova, Alaska: An armed naval landing party dispatched from the U.S. Revenue Service Cutter Rush— which is seen in her gleaming white and buff livery tied up to the pier behind the group. It should be noted that during this period in the Territory’s history, the USRCS served largely the same role as the Army’s horse cavalry during the settlement of the Old West, being typically the only armed federal force in most of the region.

Photo by: U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office, VIRIN: 221215-G-G0000-109.

With a typical complement of eight officers, a USPHS surgeon, and 40 ratings, you are looking at a big hunk of the 175-foot cutter’s manpower. Note a boxcar of the short-lived Copper River Railway, a line that only ran from the copper mines at Kennecott to Cordova.

Of interest, besides the Navy-pattern jumpers, leggings, and dixie cups, the “Revenuers” are armed with Army Krag pattern .30-40 caliber bolt-action rifles and clad in SpanAm period USMC Mills cartridge belts, sans suspenders, as better seen in this inset:

The Marines had used the 12-pocket M1895 belt for the old clip-fed straight-pull Lee-Navy 6mm rifle, which was retired by the Navy in 1907.

The circa 1895 belts, originally black, aged to more charcoal and then gray tone, especially after long periods in salt air

The 4th Revenue Cutter named after Richard Rush, John Quincy Adams’s Secretary of the Treasury, our 300-ton hermaphrodite steam schooner was built in 1885 by Hall Brothers of San Francisco for $74,000.

The service, always pinching pennies, recycled the old boiler and 400 h.p. compound-expansion steam engine of the previous 140-foot circa 1874 cutter of the same name, of which she was officially a “reconstruction.”

U.S. Revenue Cutter Rush rides at anchor off Seattle in the early 1900s

Stationed on the West Coast, she roamed the next 27 years from Alaska– where she typically made an annual summer Bearing Sea Patrol– to Washington and California where she cruised during the winter.

Her service included operating under Navy control during the Spanish-American War– when she likely picked up the Krags for her small arms locker to augment her trio of 6-pounders. During the conflict, Rush served with the understrength Pacific Squadron protecting vessels traveling between San Francisco and the Klondike gold fields.

As detailed by the USCG Historian’s Office:

She became famous for her dogged pursuit and prosecution of seal poachers who quickly learned that if they wanted to get in a large hunt, they’d have better “Get there ahead of the Rush!”. The term is also “Get there early to avoid the Rush” and “Beat the Rush“, but all date back to this single ship and the work of her crews in Alaskan waters.

She retired in 1912 and sold to the Alaska Junk Company for $8.500 on 22 January 1913.

The later USCG would recycle the name Rush two additional times, for a Prohibition-era 125-foot “Buck and a Quarter” (WSC-151) that would continue to serve until 1947 including WWII service as a subchaser, and the Hamilton-class 378-foot cutter (WHEC-723) which commissioned in 1969 and continued to serve until 2015 including stints off Vietnam where she delivered naval gunfire support to troops ashore and interdicted weapon-carrying North Vietnamese junks.

USCGC Rush (WHEC-723)

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