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Battleships · 1895–1898

USS Maine (1890)

Battleship of the United States Navy.

History

USS 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 claimed that the Spanish were responsible for the ship's destruction, while evidence points to an accident caused by an internal coal bunker fire. The phrase "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" became a rallying cry for action. The Maine explosion served as a catalyst which accelerated the events leading up to the war.

Maine is described as an armored cruiser or second-class battleship, depending on the source, ordered in 1886. She was the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after the state of Maine. 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. Maine and Texas were obsolete by the time of completion due to a protracted nine-year construction period. Far more advanced vessels were 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 February 15, 1898, killing 268 sailors, which was 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, presented in a 1976 monograph that argued for this conclusion. The cause of her sinking remains a subject of debate.

Text from Wikipedia: USS Maine (1890), CC BY-SA 4.0, lightly trimmed.

Wars and campaigns

Order (1886)Shipwrecking (1898)

From Wikidata (CC0).

Key dates

  1. 1874
    The practice of en echelon mounting had begun with Italian battleships designed in the 1870s by Benedetto Brin and followed by the British Navy with HMS Inflexible, which was laid down in 1874 but not commissioned until October 1881.
  2. 1884
    The board, now confronted with the concrete possibility of hostile warships operating off the American coast, began planning for ships to protect it in 1884.
  3. 1889
    Introduced in 1889, nickel steel was the first modern steel alloy armor and, with a figure of merit of 0.67, was an improvement over the 0.6 rating of mild steel used until then.
  4. 1899
    In December 1899, the bodies in Havana were disinterred and brought back to the United States for burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
  5. 1910
    In 1910, the decision was made to conduct a second court of inquiry.
  6. 1911
    By 30 June 1911, Maine's main deck was exposed, revealing just how damaged the ship was: Forward of frame 41 was completely destroyed, leaving only a twisted mass of steel that bore no resemblance to a bow, and the rest of the wreck was severely corroded.
  7. 1912
    Wegner says that all relevant documents were obtained and studied, including the ship's plans and weekly reports of the unwatering of Maine in 1912 (the progress of the cofferdam) written by William Furgueson, chief engineer for the project.
  8. 1912
    On 25 March 1912, a cowl from USS Maine arrived in Woburn, Massachusetts and is still on display in Woburn Center.
  9. 2025
    Its editors sent a full team of reporters and artists to Havana, including Frederic Remington, and Hearst announced a reward of $50,000 ($1.94 million in 2025) "for the conviction of the criminals who sent 258 American sailors to their deaths."

Dates and events quoted from the same Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Records that place someone aboard this ship

A ship history doesn't name everyone who served. These records do:

More history

Did a relative serve aboard USS Maine (1890)? Our free search checks 15 public sources and shows which records match, with links to the pages.