USS Santiago de Cuba was a side-wheel steamship acquired by the Union Navy during the first year of the American Civil War. She was outfitted as a gunboat with powerful 20-pounder rifled guns and 32-pounder cannon and was assigned to the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America. She was notably successful in this role, capturing several blockade runners. Her last major action of the war was the assault on Fort Fisher, during which seven of her crew won the Medal of Honor.
After the war she was sold by the Navy and began a long career of commercial service as a passenger liner and freighter. It is evident from the string of short assignments with a variety of shipping lines that she was not ideally suited for this role. Her paddlewheel propulsion and wooden hull were already obsolescing at the time of the Civil War, when modern ships were constructed with propellers and iron hulls. By one account, she was the last paddlewheel steamer to cross the Atlantic. Finally, in 1886, her engine was removed and she was converted into a barge for transporting coal. She disappears from Federal records in 1899 and her ultimate fate is unknown.
Construction and characteristics
Santiago de Cuba was commissioned by Valiente & Co. of Cuba. As the project developed, Valiente and other Cuban shareholders joined with American financiers and lawyers to form a New York Corporation, the Cuba and New York Steamship Company. The ship was intended to establish a steamship line between New York City and Santiago de Cuba. Her original cost was estimated to be $140,000. Her hull was built in Jeremiah Simonson's shipyard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. Construction was begun in 1860 and she was launched on 2 April 1861.
Her frame was constructed of white oak, hackmatack, and chestnut, reinforced with iron strapping. Her hull planking was white oak. She was long, with a beam of , and a depth of hold of . She had a fully loaded draft of and a displacement of 1,567 tons. She had two decks. As originally built, she had 50 first-class staterooms, a dining room, and a lady's salon.
The ship was propelled by side-mounted paddlewheels which were in diameter and wide. They were powered by a walking beam steam engine. The engine was built by Neptune Iron Works of New York City. Its one-cylinder had a diameter of and a stroke of . Steam was provided by two coal-fired boilers. Her maximum speed was 14 knots. She was also capable of sailing and was brigantine-rigged.
In 1877 Santiago de Cuba was converted from a paddle-wheel steamer to a propeller steamer at the Philadelphia shipyard of Neafie and Levy. Her paddle wheels, boilers, steam engine, and associated machinery were removed and portions of her hull rebuilt to accommodate the new propulsion system. Record of her new power plant has been lost, but those of Morro Castle survive. She was also owned by the Clyde Lines and converted at the same time at the same shipyard, so her new equipment was likely similar if not identical to Santiago de Cuba's. Morro Castle's new engine had a single cylinder in diameter with a stroke of .
The ship's namesake was the port of Santiago de Cuba, the destination of her original route from New York. There is ample evidence, both in official Navy communications and in her Federal documentation as a merchant ship, that her name was "Santiago de Cuba". Nonetheless, various contemporaneous newspaper reports and other print materials refer to her with an Anglicized version of her name, "St. Jago de Cuba".
Cuba and New York Steamship Company (1861) Santiago de Cuba's service to her original owner was destined to be short. On 15 June 1861 the ship sailed on her maiden voyage from New York for Havana and her namesake, Santiago de Cuba. Her second trip departed New York on 18 July 1861. On 19 August 1861 she arrived back in New York from her last trip for the Cuba and New York Steamship Company. In addition to her passengers, she carried a cargo of sugar, molasses, coffee, and cocoa nuts.
Civil War service (18611865) After a month of negotiations, on 6 September 1861 Santiago de Cuba was purchased by the Navy for $200,000. She was moved to the New York Navy Yard for refitting as a naval vessel. There she was armed with eight 32-pound carronades and two 20-pound Parrott rifles. Her naval crew was reported to be 16 officers and 104 enlisted men plus a unit of Marines. She was commissioned at the Navy Yard on 5 November 1861, and sailed for Havana, Cuba on 7 November 1861, with Commander Daniel B. Ridgely as her captain.
Gulf of Mexico blockade duty During the Civil War, the Union Navy imposed a blockade on Confederate ports both to stop agricultural exports that were a substantial part of the South's economy, and to limit the import of arms and manufactured goods which would support Confederate armies. Enforcing the blockade was Santiago de Cuba's primary mission during the war.
Santiago de Cuba was assigned to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron commanded by Flag Officer W. W. McKean, and ordered to Havana, Cuba. She arrived there on 17 November 1862. On 3 December, she captured British blockade runner Victoria at sea some 90 miles west of Point Isabel, Texas, and Ridgely sent the prize to Galveston, Texas. Four days later, she chased and overtook British schooner, Eugenia Smith, but released her for want of evidence justifying a seizure.
Santiago de Cuba sailed again from Havana on 13 March 1862. She went to Galveston to warn USS Santee of possible blockade runners and then sailed east along the coast. East of the Sabine River she encountered a river steamer loaded with cotton. Santiago de Cuba fired on the ship, but rather than surrender, the crew of the steamer grounded her and set her on fire. Santiago De Cuba reached port at Key West on than 28 March 1862.
McKean ordered Santiago de Cuba back to Havana to take on a full load of coal on 28 March 1862. After coaling, she was ordered to patrol between Cape Canaveral, Florida and Providence Channel, a deep-water route through the Bahamas archipelago. Since British sympathies were with the Confederacy, the Bahamas became a transshipment point for commerce between the Confederacy and Europe. Santiago de Cuba was tasked to stop this traffic. The ship sailed from Havana on 5 April 1862.
About 100 miles offshore of Charleston, South Carolina on 23 April 1862, Santiago de Cuba captured a schooner without a name, papers, or flag, but which was loaded with cotton. A prize crew was put aboard and the schooner was sent to Key West. Two days later, 25 April 1862, Ridgely captured the steamer Ella Warley (ex-Isabel), and put a prize crew of 27 men aboard. Her cargo was found to be rifles, swords, and other contraband. The next day, 26 April 1862, while still in convoy with Ella Warley, she captured another blockade runner, the schooner Mersey of Charleston. On 30 April, he took yet another schooner, Maria of Charleston. Having already detached 59 men for prize crews, Ridgely decided he could afford no more. He sailed to New York with his three captures, where he arrived on 4 May 1862.
On 24 May 1862, Santiago de Cuba sailed from New York, bound for Key West to return to her blockade duties. While en route, she captured to schooner Lucy C. Holmes, laden with cotton, which had sailed from Charleston, South Carolina bound for Nassau. Commander Ridgeway placed a prize crew aboard and sent her to Boston.
Upon her return to Key West, Santiago de Cuba was ordered to cruise between Cape San Antonio and Yucatán Bank, to close to Yucatán Channel to blockade runners. By 12 July 1862, she was back in Key West taking on coal.
For her next cruise, she was sent back to the waters off the Bahamas. On 3 August 1862 the ship encountered the steamer Columbia to the northeast of Providence Channel. After a six-hour chase, the steamer was captured. Columbia was a modern iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship. She was laden with armaments including eight 6-pounder cannon, 2000 Enfield rifles, gunpowder, shells, cartridges, and 83 bales of army blankets marked "C.S.A", altogether reported to be worth $200,000. A prize crew was embarked and Santiago de Cuba escorted the steamer to Key West, where they arrived on 6 August 1862. Two of the Austrian 6-pounder cannons captured by Santiago de Cuba are on display in Leutze Park at the Washington Navy Yard.
During her next cruise, on 27 August 1862, she captured the schooner Lavinia, which had sailed from Wilmington, North Carolina with a load of turpentine for Nassau. Commander Ridgely sent her with a prize crew to Key West.
Searching for commerce raiders and blockade runners
On 8 September 1862, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles reassigned Santiago de Cuba to a newly organized "Flying Squadron," created to seek out and capture Confederate commerce raiders Alabama and Florida. The squadron fell under the command of Commodore Charles Wilkes.
Commander Robert H. Wyman became the captain of Santiago De Cuba sometime in early 1863. On 21 June 1863, she and her new captain overtook the Victory off Palmetto Point, Eleuthera Island, ending a long chase after the British steamer had slipped through the blockade off Charleston with a cargo of 1,000 bales of cotton, tobacco, and turpentine. On 25 June 1863, she took the iron-hulled steamer Britannia in the same area. On 15 July, she boarded steamer, Lizzie, off the Florida coast and sent that prize to Key West. Under admiralty law of the times, the crews that captured enemy ships were entitled to a share of the value of those ships. Wyman's prize money from Victory and Britannia was $23,484.71.
On 7 December 1863, Santiago De Cuba arrived in Boston, now under the command of Captain Theodore P. Green. Green was detached and the ship decommissioned for repairs on 30 December 1863. She was dry-docked and her repairs were effected at the Boston Navy Yard. In May 1864, Captain Oliver S. Glisson was ordered to take command of the ship. Overhaul completed, the ship was recommissioned on 6 June 1864. On 12 September 1864 Santiago de Cuba took the steamer A. D. Vance (ex-Lord Clyde) northeast of Wilmington, North Carolina. She was laden with 420 bales of cotton en route from Wilmington to Halifax. On 2 November 1864, the iron-hulled steamer Lucy was captured by Santiago de Cuba about 160 miles off Wilmington. She had on board 365 bales of cotton and 25 tons of tobacco. The Lucy had on board the Confederate soldier and poet Sidney Lanier.
Assaults on Fort Fisher In late 1864, the ship was reassigned from blockade duty to the North Atlantic Squadron commanded by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. Santiago de Cuba sailed in support of the attack on Fort Fisher at the mouth of the Cape Fear River on Christmas Eve, 1864. During the operation, Santiago de Cuba protected the landing troops by shelling the Flag Pond artillery battery. She took off 65 Confederate soldiers who surrendered. While the guns of the fort were silenced, the landing force was unable to take the bastion and were withdrawn.
Porter immediately began work on a new invasion plan, this time with a different army general. Porter's fleet got underway from Fortress Monroe on January 12, 1865. By 11 pm on 13 January 1865, the fleet had once again anchored off of Fort Fisher. The bombardment of shore facilities, in which Santiago de Cuba participated, began at dawn on the 14th. The army landed troops and Santiago de Cuba led seven other vessels in a creeping bombardment in front of them as they advanced on the fort. The ships boats, meanwhile, were used to land artillery for the army. On 15 January 1865, Santiago de Cuba led "line of battle No. 3", consisting of at least seven ships, to shell the southeast face of Fort Fisher. The ship was hit at least three times by Confederate artillery.