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USS Maine (1889)

Maine was a United States Navy ship that sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, contributing to the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in April. U.S. newspapers, engaging in yellow journalism to boost circulation, claimed that the Spanish were responsible for the ship's destruction. The phrase, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" became a rallying cry for action. Although the Maine explosion was not a direct cause, it served as a catalyst that accelerated the events leading up to the war.

This article is about the ship sunk in Havana, 1898. For other ships of the same name, see USS Maine.

Maine is described as an armored cruiser or second-class battleship, depending on the source. Commissioned in 1895, she was the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after the state of Maine.[a][1][2] Maine and its contemporary the battleship Texas were both represented as an advance in American warship design, reflecting the latest European naval developments. Both ships had two-gun turrets staggered en échelon, and full sailing masts were omitted due to the increased reliability of steam engines.[3] Due to a protracted 9-year construction period, Maine and Texas were obsolete by the time of completion.[3] Far more advanced vessels were either in service or nearing completion that year.


Maine was sent to Havana Harbor to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban War of Independence. She exploded and sank on the evening of 15 February 1898, killing 268 sailors, or three-quarters of her crew. In 1898, a U.S. Navy board of inquiry ruled that the ship had been sunk by an external explosion from a mine. However, some U.S. Navy officers disagreed with the board, suggesting that the ship's magazines had been ignited by a spontaneous fire in a coal bunker. The coal used in Maine was bituminous, which is known for releasing firedamp, a mixture of gases composed primarily of flammable methane that is prone to spontaneous explosions. An investigation by Admiral Hyman Rickover in 1974 agreed with the coal fire hypothesis, penning a 1976 monograph that argued for this conclusion. The cause of her sinking remains a subject of debate.[4]


The ship lay at the bottom of the harbor until 1911, when a cofferdam was built around it.[5] The hull was patched up until the ship was afloat, then she was towed to sea and sunk. Maine now lies on the seabed 3,600 feet (1,100 m) below the surface. The ship's main mast is now a memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Operations[edit]

Maine was commissioned on 17 September 1895, under the command of Captain Arent S. Crowninshield.[2] On 5 November 1895, Maine steamed to Sandy Hook Bay, New Jersey. She anchored there two days, then proceeded to Newport, Rhode Island, for fitting out and test firing of her torpedoes. After a trip, later that month, to Portland, Maine, she reported to the North Atlantic Squadron for operations, training maneuvers and fleet exercises. Maine spent her active career with the North Atlantic Squadron, operating from Norfolk, Virginia, along the East Coast of the United States and the Caribbean. On 10 April 1897, Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee relieved Captain Crowninshield as commander of Maine.[44]

Two officers and 251 enlisted sailors or marines were killed by the explosion or drowned

Seven others were rescued but soon died of their injuries

One officer later died of "cerebral affection" (shock)

Had a mine been the cause of the explosion, a column of water would have been observed.

The wind and the waters were calm and hence a mine could have only been detonated by electricity, but no cables had been found.

No dead fish were found in the harbor, as would be expected following an explosion in the water.

Munition stores do not usually explode when a ship is sunk by a mine.

Rediscovery[edit]

On October 18, 2000, the wreck of Maine was rediscovered in about 3,770 feet (1,150 m) of water roughly 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Havana Harbor by Advanced Digital Communications, a Toronto-based expedition company. The team, led by marine engineer Paulina Zelitsky, accidentally stumbled across the ship while working with Cuban scientists and oceanographers from the University of South Florida College of Marine Science to test underwater exploration technology. The ship was discovered east of where it was reportedly scuttled; according to the researchers, this was due to currents pushing the ship to the east as it sank. Given the location of the wreck, the researchers did not initially believe it to be the Maine, and they referred to it simply as the "square" due to its unique shape. Once the team began to explore the wreck with a Remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), they discovered that the hull had not oxidized, allowing them to "see all of [the ship's] structural parts."[99] The researchers confirmed the ship's identity both by scrutinizing the design of its doors, hatches, anchor chain, and propellers, and by identifying the telltale bulkhead that had been created when the bow was removed in 1912. Near the wreck, the team also located a boiler and a debris field of coal.[99]

Memorials[edit]

Arlington, Annapolis, Havana, Key West[edit]

In February 1898, the recovered bodies of sailors who died on Maine were interred in the Colon Cemetery, Havana. Some injured sailors were sent to hospitals in Havana and Key West, Florida. Those who died in hospitals were buried in Key West. In December 1899, the bodies in Havana were disinterred and brought back to the United States for burial at Arlington National Cemetery.[100] In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson dedicated the USS Maine Mast Memorial to those who died. The memorial includes the ship's main mast. Roughly 165 were buried at Arlington, although the remains of one sailor were exhumed for his home town, Indianapolis, Indiana. Of the rest, only 62 were known.[95] Nine bodies were never recovered and 19 crewmen, several unidentified, are buried in Key West Cemetery under a statue of a U.S. sailor holding an oar.[c]

List of battleships of the United States Navy

U.S. Navy memorials

Monument to the Victims of the USS Maine (Havana)

– last surviving officer of the sinking (died 1952)

Wat Tyler Cluverius Jr.

Alden, John D. (1989). American Steel Navy: A Photographic History of the U.S. Navy from the Introduction of the Steel Hull in 1883 to the Cruise of the Great White Fleet. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-0-87021-248-2.

ISBN

Allen, Francis J. (1998). "Honoring the Heroes: The Raising of the Wreck of the U.S. Battleship Maine, Part I". Warship International. XXXV (4): 386–405.  0043-0374.

ISSN

. The Spanish American War Centennial Website. www.spanamwar.com. 1996. Retrieved 2 April 2012.

"Battleship Maine"

. Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 6 February 1998. Retrieved 2 October 2011.

"Casualties on USS Maine"

Coughlin, Bill (2012). . Bill Coughlin. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2014.

"U.S.S. Maine Memorial Marker"

Cowan, Mark D.; Sumrall, Alan K. (2011). "Old Hoodoo": The Battleship Texas: America's First Battleship, 1895–1911. Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace.  978-1-4662-4894-6.

ISBN

Crawford, Michael J.; Hayes, Mark L.; Sessions, Michael D. (30 November 1998). . Naval Historical Center, U.S. Department of the Navy. Retrieved 2 October 2011.

"The Spanish–American War : Historical Overview and Select Bibliography"

Dober, Mark; Keough, Daniel E. & Koehler, R. B. (2006). "Question 20/04: Artifacts from USS Maine (ACR-1)". Warship International. XLIII (2): 131–33.  0043-0374.

ISSN

Friedman, Norman (1984). U.S. Cruisers, An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-0-87021-718-0.

ISBN

Friedman, Norman (1985). U.S. Battleships, An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-0-87021-715-9.

ISBN

Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. New York: Mayflower Books.  978-0-312-24023-3.

ISBN

Jackson, Robert (2004). Fighting Ships of the World. London: Amber Books. p. 421.  978-1840136470.

ISBN

Krause, Paul, ed. (1992). . Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-5466-8.

The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892: politics, culture, and steel

Love, Robert W. Jr., ed. (1992). History of the U.S. Navy, Volume One: 1775–1941. Harriburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books.  978-0-8117-1862-2.

ISBN

. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 2 October 2011.

"Maine (BB-2)"

Miller, David, ed. (2001). Illustrated Directory of Warships of the World. Osceloa, WI: Zenith Press.  978-0-7603-1127-1.

ISBN

Misa, Thomas J., ed. (1999). A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865–1925. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press.  978-0-8018-6052-2.

ISBN

Morley, A. W. (1895). "Contract Trial of the United States Armored Cruiser Maine". Journal of the Society of American Engineers.

Morrison, Samuel Loring, ed. (2003). The American Battleship. Osceloa, WI: Zenith Press.  978-0-7603-0989-6.

ISBN

Musicant, Ivan (1998). . New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-3500-1.

Empire by Default: The Spanish–American War and the Dawn of the American Century

O'Toole, G. J. A. (1984). . New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 9780393018394.

The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898

Paine, Lincoln P. (2000). Warships of the World to 1900. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  978-0-395-98414-7.

ISBN

Parkinson, Roger (2008). The Late Victorian Navy: The Pre-Dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First World War. Rochester, New York: Boydell Press.  978-1-84383-372-7.

ISBN

Pater, Alan F., ed. (1968). United States Battleships: The History of America's Greatest Fighting Ships. Beverly Hills, California: Monitor Book Company.  68-17423.

LCCN

Peifer, Douglas Carl (2016). Choosing War. Oxford University Press.  978-0-19-026868-8.

ISBN

Putnam, William Lowell (2000). Arctic Superstars. New York: Amer Alpine Club.  978-0-930410-82-7.

ISBN

Reilly, John C.; Scheina, Robert L. (1980). American Battleships 1886–1923: Predreadnought Design and Construction. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-0-87021-524-7.

ISBN

Rickover, Hyman George (1995). How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed (Second Revised ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.  978-1-55750-717-4.

ISBN

. Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. Retrieved 2 October 2011.

"Sinking of USS Maine, 15 February 1898"

. Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 6 February 1998. Retrieved 2 October 2011.

"Survivors of USS Maine"

. Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 13 August 2003. Archived from the original on 18 August 2007. Retrieved 2 October 2011.

"The Destruction of USS Maine"

United States Army Corps of Engineers (1914). . Washington: United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Final Report on Removing Wreck of USS Maine from Harbor of Habana, Cuba

. Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 17 November 1998. Archived from the original on 10 January 2015. Retrieved 2 October 2011.

"USS Maine (1895–1898), originally designated as Armored Cruiser # 1"

Weems, John Edward (1992). The Fate of the Maine. : Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-0-89096-501-6.

College Station, Texas

Wegner, Dana (2001). "Chapter 2: New Interpretations of How the USS Maine Was Lost". In Marolda, Edward J. (ed.). . London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-1370-5501-9.

Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Navy and the Spanish–American War

Wisan, Joseph Ezra (1965) [c. 1934]. The Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press, 1895–1898. Octagon Books.  435153688.

OCLC

Allen, Thomas B. "Remember the Maine?" National Geographic, Vol. 193, No 2 (February 1998): 92–111.

Allen, Thomas B. ed. "What Really Sank the Maine?" Naval History 11 (March/April 1998): 30–39.

Blow, Michael. A Ship to Remember: The Maine and the Spanish–American War. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1992.  978-0-688-09714-1.

ISBN

Foner, Philip S. The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism 1895–1902. 2 Volumes, New York/London 1972 (very detailed with plenty of sources from US archives).

Samuels, Peggy and Harold. Remembering the Maine. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC and London 1995  978-1-56098-474-0.

ISBN

from the Library of Congress at Flickr Commons

USS Maine

Hartshorn, Byron, "Visiting the USS Maine around Washington, DC"

USS Maine

United States Navy, Bureau of Steam Engineering, Specifications for triple-expansion twin-screw propelling machinery for U.S.S. Maine at Google Books. Retrieved 6 April 2012.

, at ArlingtonCemetery.net, 14 July 2022, an unofficial website

U.S.S. Maine Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery

Background information on the Maine

from the Library of Congress American Memory website

USS Maine Pictures

of Maine at NavSource Naval History – Construction – Active Service

Photo gallery

from NARA

USS Maine

in Proceedings of the Municipal Engineers of the City of New York – via Google Books

Black, William F. "The Story of the Maine"