| Act of 10 June 1896: |
"._._. The President
is hereby authorized to have constructed by contract three seagoing coastline
battle ships designed to carry the heaviest armor and most powerful ordnance
upon a displacement of about eleven thousand tons, to have the highest
practicable speed for vessels of their class, and to cost, exclusive of armament,
not exceeding three million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars each;
._._. Not more
than two of said battle ships
._._. shall
be built in one yard or by one contracting party,
._._. Premiums
._._. are not
to be offered, In all their parts said vessels shall be of domestic manufacture;
._._. Not more
than one seagoing battle ship shall be built on or near the coast of the
Pacific Ocean
._._." |
| The first Wisconsin (Battleship No. 9) was laid down on
9 February 1897 at San Francisco, California, by the Union Iron Works; launched
on 26 November 1898; sponsored by Miss Elizabeth Stephenson, the daughter
of Senator Isaac Stephenson of Marinette, Wisconsin, and commissioned on
4 February 1901, Capt. George C. Reiter in command. |
| Departing San Francisco on 12 March 1901, Wisconsin conducted
general drills and exercises at Magdalena Bay, Mexico, from 17 March to 11
April before she returned to San Francisco on 15 April to be drydocked for
repairs. Upon completion of that work, Wisconsin headed north along
the western seaboard, departing San Francisco on 28 May and reaching Port
Orchard, Washington, on 1 June. She remained there for nine days before heading
back toward San Francisco. |
| She next made a voyage -- in company with the battleships
Oregon and Iowa, the cruiser Philadelphia and the
torpedo-boat destroyer Farragut -- to the Pacific Northwest, reaching
Port Angeles, Washington, on 2 July, and participated in the 4th of July
observances there before she returned to Port Angeles the following day to
resume her scheduled drills and exercises. Those evolutions kept the ship
occupied through mid-July. |
| Following repairs and alterations at the Puget Sound Navy Yard,
Bremerton, Washington, from 23 July to 14 October, Wisconsin sailed
for the middle and southern reaches of the Pacific, reaching Honolulu, Hawaii,
on 23 October. After coaling there, the battleship then got underway for
Samoa on the 16th and exercised her main and secondary batteries en route
to her destination. |
| Reaching the naval station at Tutuila on 5 November,
Wisconsin remained in that vicinity, along with the collier
Abarenda
and the hospital ship Solace, for a little over two weeks. Shifting
to Apia -- the scene of the disastrous hurricane of 1888 -- Wisconsin
hosted the Governor of German Samoa before the man-of-war departed that port
on the 21st, bound, -- via Hawaii -- for the coastal waters of Central and
Southern America. |
| Wisconsin reached Acapulco on Christmas Day, 1901, and
remained in port for three days. After coaling, the man-of-war twice visited
Callao, Peru, and also called at Valparaiso, Chile, before she returned to
Acapulco on 26 February 1902. |
| Wisconsin exercised in Mexican waters -- at Pichilinque
Bay and Magdalena Bay -- from 5 to 22 March, carrying out an intensive and
varied slate of exercises that included small-arms drills; day and night
main battery target practices; and landing forces maneuvers. She conducted
further drills of various kinds as she proceeded up the west coast, touching
at Coronado, San Francisco and Port Angeles before she reached the Puget
Sound Navy Yard on 4 June. |
| The battleship underwent repairs and alterations until 11 August.
She then conducted gunnery exercises off Tacoma and Seattle, Washington,
before she returned to the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 29 August for further
work. She remained there until 12 September, when she sailed for San Francisco,
en route to Panama. |
| Wisconsin -- as flagship, Pacific Squadron -- with Rear
Admiral Silas Casey embarked, arrived at Panama, Colombia, on 30 September
1902, to protect American interests and to preserve the integrity of transit
across the isthmus. Casey offered his services as a mediator in the crisis
that had lasted for three years and invited leaders of both fractions --
conservatives and liberals -- to meet on board Wisconsin. Over succeeding
weeks, through October and into November, prolonged negotiations ensued.
Ultimately, however, the warring sides came to an agreement, and signed a
treaty on 21 November 1902. The accord came to be honored, in Colombian circles,
as "The Peace of Wisconsin." When Rear Admiral Henry Glass, Admiral
Casey's successor as Commander in Chief, Pacific Squadron, wrote his report
to the Secretary of the Navy for fiscal year 1903, he lauded his predecessor's
diplomatic services during the Panama crisis. "The final settlement of the
revolutionary disturbance," Glass wrote approvingly, "was largely due to
his efforts." |
| Her task completed, the battleship departed Panama's waters on
22 November and arrived at San Francisco on 5 December to prepare for gunnery
exercises. Four days later, Rear Admiral Casey shifted his flag to the armored
cruiser New
York, thus releasing Wisconsin from flagship duties for the
Pacific Squadron. The battleship consequently carried out her firings until
17 December, when she sailed for Bremerton. Reaching the Puget Sound Navy
Yard five days before Christmas of 1902, Wisconsin then underwent
repairs and alterations until 13 May 1903, when she sailed for the Asiatic
Station. |
| Proceeding via Honolulu, Wisconsin arrived at Yokohama,
Japan, on 12 June, with Rear Admiral Yates Stirling embarked; three days
later, Rear Admiral Stirling exchanged flagships with Rear Admiral P. H.
Cooper, who broke his two-starred flag at Wisconsin's main as Commander
of the Asiatic Fleet's Northern Squadron while Admiral Stirling hoisted his
in the tender Rainbow. |
| Wisconsin operated in the Far East, with the Asiatic Fleet,
over the next three years before she returned to the United States in the
autumn of 1906. She followed a normal routine of operations in the northern
latitudes of the station-China and Japan-in the summer months, because of
the oppressive heat of the Philippine Islands that time of year, but in the
Philippine Archipelago in the winter. She touched at ports in Japan and China,
including Kobe, Yokohama, Nagasaki, and Yokosuka; Amoy, Shanghai, Chefoo,
Nanking, and Taku. In addition, she cruised the Yangtze River (as far as
Nanking), the Inland Sea and Nimrod Sound. The battleship conducted assigned
fleet maneuvers and exercises off the Chinese and Philippine coasts, intervening
those evolutions with regular periods of in-port upkeep and repairs. During
that time, she served as Asiatic Fleet flagship, wearing the flag of Rear
Admiral Cooper. |
| The battleship departed Yokohama on 20 September and, after calling
at Honolulu en route between 3 and 8 October, arrived at San Francisco on
the 18th. After seven days' stay at that port, she headed up the west coast
and reached the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 28 October. She was decommissioned
there on 15 November 1906. |
| Recommissioned on 1 April 1908, Capt. Henry Morrell in command,
Wisconsin was fitted out at the Puget Sound Navy Yard until the end
of April. After shifting to Port Angeles from 30 April to 2 May, the battleship
proceeded down the western seaboard and reached San Francisco on 6 May to
participate in a fleet review at that port. She subsequently returned to
Puget Sound to complete the installation of her fire control equipment between
21 May and 22 June. |
| Soon thereafter, Wisconsin retraced her southward course,
returning to San Francisco in early July. There, she joined the battleships
of the Atlantic Fleet in setting out on the transpacific leg of the momentous
circumnavigation of the globe. The cruise of the "Great White Fleet" served
as a pointed reminder to Japan of the power of the United States -- a dramatic
gesture made by President Theodore Roosevelt as signal evidence of his "big
stick" policy. Wisconsin, during the course of her part of the voyage,
called at ports in New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, China,
Ceylon, and Egypt; transited the Suez Canal; visited Malta, Algiers, and
Gibraltar before arriving in Hampton Roads on Washington's Birthday, 1909,
and passing in review there before President Roosevelt. The epic voyage had
confounded the doomsayers and critics, having been accomplished without any
serious incidents or mishaps. |
| Wisconsin departed from the Tidewater area on 6 March and
arrived at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Navy Yard three days later. The
pre-dreadnought battleship there underwent repairs and alterations until
23 June, doffing her bright "white and spar color" and donning a more
businesslike gray. The man-of-war joined the Atlantic Fleet in Hampton Roads
at the end of June, but she remained in those waters only a short time, for
she sailed north to Portland, Maine, arriving there on 2 July in time to
take part in the 4th of July festivities in that port. |
| The battleship next headed down the eastern sea board, cruising
off Rockport and Provincetown, Massachusetts before she returned, with the
fleet, to Hampton Roads on 6 August. Over the ensuing weeks, Wisconsin
fired target practices in the southern drill grounds, off the Virginia capes,
breaking those underway periods with upkeep in Hampton Roads. |
| Wisconsin steamed with the fleet to New York City where
she anchored in the North River to take part in the Hudson - Fulton celebrations
between 22 September and 5 October before she underwent repairs at the
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Navy Yard from 7 October to 28 November. She then
dropped down to Newport, Rhode Island, upon the conclusion of that yard period,
picking up drafts of men for transportation to the Atlantic Fleet at Hampton
Roads. |
| Wisconsin operated with the fleet off the Virginia capes
through mid-December, before she headed for New York for the Christmas holidays
in port. Subsequently cruising to Cuban waters in early January 1910, the
battleship operated out of Guantanamo Bay for a little over two months, from
12 January to 19 March. |
| The pre-dreadnought battleship then visited Tompkinsville, New
York, and New Orleans, Louisiana, before she discharged ammunition at New
York City on 22 April. Later that spring, 1910, she moved to the Portsmouth,
New Hampshier, Navy Yard, where she was placed in reserve. She was moved
to Philadelphia in April 1912 and, that autumn, took part in a naval review
off Yonkers, New York, before resuming her reserve status with the Atlantic
Reserve Fleet. Placed "in ordinary" on 31 October 1913, Wisconsin
remained in that status until she joined the Naval Academy Practice Squadron
in the spring of 1915, assuming training duties along with the battleships
Missouri
and
Ohio. With
that group, she became the third battleship to transit the Panama Canal,
making that trip in mid-July 1915 en route to the west coast of the United
States with her embarked officers-to-be. |
| Wisconsin discharged her duties as a midshipman's training
ship into 1917 and was moored at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 6 April of
that year, when she received word that the United States had declared war
on Germany. Two days later, members of the Naval Militia began reporting
on board the battleship for quarters and subsistence. |
| On 23 April, Wisconsin, Missouri and Ohio
were placed in full commission and assigned to the Coast Battleship Patrol
Squadron. Within two weeks, on 2 May, Comdr. (later Admiral) David F. Sellers
reported on board and took command. Four days later, the battleship got underway
for the Virginia capes; and she arrived at Yorktown, Virginia, on the
7th. |
| From early May through early August, Wisconsin operated
as an engineering school ship on training cruises in the Chesapeake Bay-York
River area. She trained recruits as oilers, watertenders, and firemen --
when qualified, were assigned to the formerly interned merchantmen of the
enemy taken over by the United States upon the declaration of war, as well
as to submarine chasers and the merchant vessels then building in American
yards. |
| Wisconsin then maneuvered and exercised in company with
the battleships
Kearsarge,
Alabama,
Illinois,
Kentucky,
Ohio, Missouri, and
Maine
between 13 and 19 August, en route to Port Jefferson, Louisiana. Over the
ensuing weeks, Wisconsin continued training and tactical maneuvers
based on Port Jefferson, making various training cruises into Long Island
Sound. |
| She subsequently returned to the York River region early in October
and resumed her training activities in that locale, operating primarily in
the Chesapeake Bay area. Wisconsin continued that duty into the spring
of 1918, interrupted her training evolutions between 30 October and 18 December
1917 for repairs at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. |
| After another stint of repairs at Philadelphia from 13 May to
3 June 1918, Wisconsin got underway for a cruise to Annapolis but,
after passing the Brandywine Shoal Light, received orders to stick close
to shore. Those orders were later modified to send Wisconsin up the
Delaware River as far as Bombay Hook, since an enemy submarine was active
off Cape Henlopen. Postwar examination of German records would show that
U151 -- reportedly the first of six enemy submarines to come to the
eastern seaboard in 1918 -- sank three schooners on 23 May and other ships
over ensuing days. |
| Getting underway again on 6 June, Wisconsin arrived at
Annapolis on the following day. On the next day, the battleship embarked
175 3d class midshipmen and got underway for the York River. The ship conducted
training evolutions in the Chesapeake Bay region until 29 August, when she
returned to Annapolis and disembarked midshipmen. Underway for Yorktown on
the 30th, Wisconsin there embarked 217 men for training as firemen,
water tenders, engineers, steersmen and signalmen, resumed her training duties,
and continued the task through the signing of the armistice on 11
November. |
| She completed her training activities on 20 December, sailed north
and reached New York City three days before Christmas. Wisconsin was
among the ships reviewed by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels from the
deck of the yacht
Mayflower
and by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt from
Aztec (SP-590) on the day after Christmas, 26 December. |
| Wisconsin cruised with the fleet in Cuban waters that winter
and, in the summer of 1919, made a midshipman training cruise to the
Caribbean. |
| Placed out of commission on 15 May 1920, Wisconsin was
reclassified BB-9 on 17 July 1920, while awaiting disposition. She was sold
for scrap on 26 January 1922 as a result of the Washington Treaty. |
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