USS Vicksburg

USS Vicksburg was a United States Navy gunboat laid down in March 1896 at Bath, Maine, launched on 5 December 1896 from the Bath Iron Works yard, and commissioned on 23 October 1897. The vessel was sponsored by Addie Trowbridge, and named after the town of Vicksburg, where her father was mayor at the time. Service history Spanish–American War, 1898–1899 Vicksburg left Newport, Rhode Island on 16 January 1898, sailing for Saint Thomas in the Caribbean. On 26 April, at the start of the Spanish–American War, she sailed south to join in the blockade of Cuba. For the next three months, Vicksburg patrolled the Cuban coast near Havana, returning to Key West, Florida periodically for fuel and provisions. During her tour of duty in Cuban waters, she captured three blockade runners. In May, she took Oriente, Fernandito, and Bernardico on the 5th, 7th, and 9th, respectively. The Oriente and Fernandito were small unarmed sailing ships bound from the Gulf of Campeche to Havana with cargoes of fish. Vicksburg took each to Key West where they were condemned by a prize court. Her fourth and final capture came more than a month later on 24 June when she encountered Ampala, a sailing vessel, bound from Havana to Trujillo. Though Ampala carried no cargo save provisions for her passengers, Vicksburg took her to Key West where she, too, was duly condemned. On 7 May, Vicksburg came under the fire of the Santa Clara Battery shore battery near Havana, and again on 14 August. By then, hostilities in Cuba were ending, and the need for blockading ships diminished. Vicksburg departed Cuban waters on the 14th and, after a three-day stop at Key West, continued north to Newport where she arrived on 23 August. During the remaining months of 1898 and the first five months of 1899, she operated along the east coast and in the Caribbean. On 24 May 1899, Vicksburg was placed out of commission at Boston. Asiatic Station, 1900–1904 Almost a year later, on 15 May 1900, the gunboat was recommissioned at Newport, R.I. After six months of operations in the Atlantic, Vicksburg stood out of Boston on 9 November for duty on the Asiatic Station. She sailed via the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal and arrived at Cavite—on the island of Luzon in the Philippines—on 2 February 1901. During the first of her three years in the Far East, Vicksburg joined other Navy units in supporting the Army's campaign in the Philippine–American War which followed Spain's ceding the islands to the U.S.