NASHVILLE (USN Gunboat #7)

A Noteworthy NNS-Built Naval Vessel

The gunboat NASHVILLE was the first naval vessel built by Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS). She was also the first, albeit the only vessel of her class. She earned a place in history on the morning of April 22, 1898, when she fired the first shot on the first day of the Spanish-American War and captured the first prize of war associated with that conflict...which lasted only ten weeks. Congress had authorized construction of the Navy's seventh gunboat in 1893. That year marked only the ninth year of the shipyard's existence. Only six vessels...two tugs and four cargo ships...had previously been completed by the Newport News shipyard. All but one of those vessels had been constructed for railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington [right]; the founder and first owner of NNS.

Although few in number, they had been well built and their service records had impressed the US Navy; thus allowing NNS to be placed on the bidder's list for a trio of gunboats. When Newport News Shipbuilding was declared to be the low bidder for the NASHVILLE and two slightly larger gunboats, Mr. Huntington expressed some concern about the winning bid in a letter to Calvin B. Orcutt [left] shipyard president in 1893.

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"The price seems very low," Mr. Huntington wrote to Mr. Orcutt, "and more particularly so as you know my feeling is that every ship we build there should be first-class in quality in every respect whether we make or lose on her. "In fact, I think the shipyard in the end will make more money to do first-class work then to get ever so little below that high standard. I think we have got the best shipyard plant in the world. What I want to do is to have for it the reputation of building the best ships." On January 22, 1894, the US Navy entered into a contract worth $280,000 with NNS for the NASHVILLE (USN Gunboat #7). Coincidentally assigned NNS Hull #7, she was a shallow draft vessel that measured a little less than 234 feet in length, overall. She had a 38 foot beam, and had a mean draft of just eleven feet. Her displacement was 1,620 tons, full load. This relatively small twin screw warship was fitted with two quadruple expansion steam engines that developed a total shaft horsepower of 2,524 during her official trials. which allowed her to reach a top speed of 16.3 knots. She had six coal-fired, natural draft boilers and bunker capacity for 363 tons of coal. Her armament consisted of eight, four-inch guns and several smaller caliber weapons. Some of her four-inch guns were deck mounted; open to the rear of their splinter shields. The rest were placed in armored casements along both sides of her hull. NASHVILLE's keel was laid on October 1, 1894. She was launched a little over a year later, on Saturday, October 19, 1895, at 9:48 AM.

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Miss Maria Guild, daughter of the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee had been previously chosen to be the ship's sponsor. However, while she was en route to Newport News, she learned of the accidental death of her brother. Devastated, she returned to Nashville. Miss Emma Thompson was amongst a number of other people from Nashville already in Newport News for the launching of their home town's namesake vessel. The Navy asked her to perform the christening ritual, which she did, following a quick lesson administered by a shipyard official. The following remarkably clear photograph, taken as the NASHVILLE began her slide to the sea, reveals a number of interesting details. On the far left, her bow draft marks and a splash of champagne can be seen. Just to the right, and below, workers and launch machinery on the shipway are visible. Several white streaks and an umbrella on the far right indicate that the gala event took place in inclement weather. Behind the ship's substitute sponsor looms the stern of the gunboat WILMINGTON, which was launched later that same day from the same shipway. In the foreground, the tall man wearing a derby, may be Mr. Orcutt.

The NASHVILLE was delivered to the Navy on June 25, 1897. The slightly larger WILMINGTON and HELENA, USN gunboats #8 and #9, assigned NNS Hull #8 and Hull #9, respectively, left the shipyard earlier that same year.

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In spite of earning a sizable bonus on each of the gun boats for exceeding a contractually required minimum speed of 13.6 knots, the shipyard lost money on the NASHVILLE and her two near-sister ships. But the Navy was pleased with the ships and over the next few years NNS was awarded contracts for four battleships and a monitor. All of these vessels were built profitably. Following her commissioning in mid-1897, the NASHVILLE joined the Navy's North Atlantic Fleet. Depicted on the right alongside a Norfolk Navy Yard quay on January 8, 1898, the NASHVILLE appears in her peacetime color scheme. In addition to a white hull, her two tall smokestacks and masts were painted a buff color. In mid-February of that same year, the American battleship MAINE was anchored in the harbor of Havana, Cuba; at the time a Spanish possession. There on what was purported to be a good will visit, she was destroyed in a mysterious explosion. Over half of her crew of approximately 400 were killed. Initially, that tragedy was attributed to a mine. [Decades later, an investigation of the ship's remains revealed that the most likely source of the explosion was a fire adjacent to the vessel's ammunition magazine.] But in 1898, the Spanish were thought by many in America to have been to blame. The relationship between Spain and the United States, which was already strained, rapidly deteriorated after that tragic event. Efforts at easing tensions between the two nations ended when the Spanish-American War started in April of 1898. By that time, a powerful squadron of American warships, including the NASHVILLE had been pre-positioned at the Naval Station in Key West, Florida. The Navy's intent was to blockade Cuba, in the event of war. On the evening of April 21st, word came to the American squadron to set sail for Cuba. While underway the next morning on a course south-southwest from Key West, an east-bound steamer was sighted shortly after dawn. Entries from the NASHVILLE's log succinctly describe what happened next: "Sighted steamer flying Spanish colors. Went to general quarters at 0710. Fired three shells across the Spanish steamer's bow. She stopped and hauled down her colors. Sent Ensign T. P. Magruder [depicted on the right] onboard with armed crew.

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"Found vessel to be Spanish steamer BUENA VENTURA laden with lumber from Pascagoula, Miss., bound for Norfolk, Va. Received verbal order from squadron's commander-in-chief to take steamer to Key West, then return to the fleet. Ordered Ensign Magruder to take charge of the vessel and follow NASHVILLE." That event made for a rather inauspicious start to the war. Surrounded by a dozen American warships, the crew of the unarmed Spanish steamer was not even aware that war had been declared. The following image, taken from another American warship, shows the NASHVILLE [left] and the Spanish steamer BUENA VENTURA shortly after the first shot in the Spanish-American War had been fired.

Over the next five days, the NASHVILLE's crew captured three more Spanish vessels. The following month, heroic members of her crew participated in the dramatic destruction of undersea telegraph cables just off Cuba's shoreline while under heavy enemy cannon and small arms fire.

Cable-Cutting at Cienfuegoes May 11, 1898

The cutting of the cables connecting Cuba with the rest of the world was of considerable strategic importance in the Spanish-American War. These cables were armored, laid on the sea bed and seemingly invulnerable. Up to two inches in diameter, they weighed six pounds per linear foot. Severing them was akin to cutting through a bar of iron about as thick as a man's wrist.

In order to cut the cables, it was deemed necessary for American sailors to venture close enough to shore in order to locate the cables in shallow water, then pull them to the surface and sever them by hand. One of the NASHVILLE's officers, Lieutenant Cameron Winslow [left] was selected to lead an expedition to attempt that feat, which was fully expected to be hotly contested by the Spanish. Four launches and their crews that were provided by the NASHVILLE and the cruiser MARBLEHEAD were placed under his command.

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Ensign Magruder commanded one of the NASHVILLE's steam cutters, which is shown on the right alongside NASHVILLE that day. To provide covering fire, both American warships steamed within fourteen hundred yards of the rocky beach at Cienfuegoes, Cuba. At that relatively close range, both ships opened fire, using their main and secondary batteries. Equipped with hand-held tools, American sailors in a quartet of small boats headed for shore, mostly ignoring pointblank cannon and rife fire from entrenched Spanish soldiers. The enemy gunfire was largely suppressed by a fusillade of heavier weapons' fire from the NASHVILLE and the MARBLEHEAD.

As a result, the American boats and their brave crews were able to venture as close as fifty yards to the shoreline. They looked for and eventually located a pair of widely separated cables in the crystal clear shallows. Grapples were then used to snag the cables, one by one. It took thirty sailors to laboriously haul each cable to the surface by hand in order to facilitate the cutting operation. Using axes, cold-chisels, hack-saws and hand-saw made for cutting metal; it took between twenty minutes and a half an hour for the men, taking turns, to cut through each cable. Once the cables were cut, the launches moved seaward.

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After dragging one end of the cut cables about 100 yards further offshore, each of the undersea communication lines was severed again. The freed sections of cable were tossed into the sea some distance offshore in much deeper water as the boats returned to the NASHVILLE and MARBLEHEAD. This signal success was not without a cost in human life and suffering. Several American sailors and Marines were killed or seriously wounded during the performance of this dangerous duty, including their leader, Lieutenant Winslow, who...fortunately...was only slightly wounded. While providing protective cover fire, the NASHVILLE was hit by numerous enemy bullets that left multiple marks from her waterline to the top of her smoke stacks. Her first skipper, Commander Washburn Maynard [USNA - Class of 1866] was slightly wounded, but remained in active command of the gunboat. For the short duration of the Spanish-American War, the NASHVILLE remained on patrol duty in Cuban waters. She left the Caribbean in October of 1899, heading eastward. After passing through the Suez Canal, she arrived in the Philippines on the last day of the year. The year 1900 was a busy one for the NASHVILLE and her crew. They provided gunfire support to American troops battling Filipino insurgents and then steamed to China, where they participated in the Boxer Rebellion. In mid-1901, the NASHVILLE was transferred to the Mediterranean. After a year's patrol duty there, she returned to America, followed by reassignment to the US Navy's Caribbean Station. While there, she supported the revolutionary Junta in Panama, thereby insuring success in securing a treaty with the United States to build the Panama Canal. NASHVILLE then was sent to Boston, where she was twice decommissioned. In between two periods of inactivity, she returned to the Caribbean for a year of peaceful patrol duty. In 1909, she was assigned to the Illinois Naval Militia. For three years she trained sailors while being home ported in Chicago. Her arrival was commemorated by the issuance of an unknown number of beautifully boxed keepsakes that highlighted her 'first shot' fame. Depicted on the right, such artifacts infrequently appear for sale by auction houses that ask very high prices for them. NASHVILLE returned to Boston in 1912, where she received an extensive overhaul. Her boilers were replaced and more up-to-date armament installed.

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She then spent the next five years on patrol duties back in Caribbean waters. During that time, she participated in the blockade of Mexico, following the overthrow of that county's government. NASHVILLE was in Mexican waters off the city of Tampico when the United States entered World War I. During 'the war to end all wars', she performed convoy escort duties in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and also patrolled off the Moroccan coast. At the end of the war, the gunboat returned to the United States and was decommissioned late in 1918. While being held in reserve, she was designated PG-7. Three years later, the NASHVILLE was sold to a company in Virginia. Her armament, propulsion plant and superstructure, including her signature tall smokestacks were removed, and her hull cut down in order for the historic vessel to become a lowly lumber barge. A wooden deckhouse was added on her stern. Her highly polished ship's bell, bearing the date 1897 and its sturdy cast iron hanger assembly were saved when the gunboat was decommissioned. Ultimately, it was donated to the Mariners' Museum in 1976. This artifact from the first warship built by NNS is currently on loan to and on display at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia. She was renamed RICHMOND CEDAR WORKS No. 4. Under tow, this former warship transported lumber in the Chesapeake Bay area for 33 years; not far from her birthplace. She was taken out of service in 1954 and scrapped in 1957. The following image was made on January 19, 1948.

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~ Postscript ~ Of the sixteen NNS-built vessels completed between 1891 and 1898, nine of them took part in the Spanish-American War. In addition to the gunboats NASHVILLE, WILMINGTON and HELENA, a tugboat, four freighters and a passenger and freight steamer were purchased from their private owners by the US Navy. All of them were renamed with the prefix USS included in their new titles. But because of that war's short duration, they provided limited service to the Navy. After the cessation of hostilities in August of 1898, some of these early NNS products remained in military service, while others reverted to civilian use. To date, the City of Nashville has had two other warships named in her honor. A Light Cruiser (CL-43) was built in the 1930s, and an Amphibious Transport Dock (LPD-13) was constructed in the 1960s. Neither vessel was built at NNS. The correspondence cited earlier in this essay that was sent from shipyard founder Collis P. Huntington to shipyard president Calvin B. Orcutt in 1893 clearly documents the former's desire for NNS to be known worldwide for the quality of its products...even should losses occur. Another shipyard president, Homer L. Ferguson, saw to it in 1919 that unusual business philosophy was immortalized. The monument depicted on the right was positioned in a place of honor at NNS and unveiled on January 1, 1917. Since that time, the monument itself has had a long and interesting history that includes several relocations. But that's another story for another time...

Bill Lee

June 2017