The Great White Fleet Battleship Virginia

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USS Virginia (BB-13), Third Division

Virginia (Battleship No. 13) was laid down on 21 May 1902 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co.; launched on 6 April 1904; sponsored by Miss Gay Montague, daughter of the Governor of Virginia; and commissioned on 7 May 1906, Capt. Seaton Schroeder in command.

After fitting out, Virginia conducted her "shaking down" cruise in Lynnhaven Bay, Virginia, off Newport, Rhode Island, and off Long Island, New York, before she put into Bradford, Rhode Island, for coal on 9 August. After running trials for the standardization of her screws off Rockland, Maine, the battleship maneuvered in Long Island Sound before anchoring off President Theodore Roosevelt's home, Oyster Bay, Long Island, from 2 to 4 September, for a Presidential review.

Virginia then continued her shakedown cruise before she coaled again at Bradford. Meanwhile, events were occurring in the Caribbean that would alter the new battleship's employment. On the island of Cuba, in August of 1906, a revolution had broken out against the government of President T. Estrada Palma. The disaffection, which had started in Pinar del Rio province, grew in the early autumn to the point where President Palma had no recourse but to appeal to the United states for intervention. By mid-September, it had become apparent that the small Cuban constabulary (8,000 rural guards) was unable to protect foreign interests, and intervention would be necessary. Accordingly, Virginia departed Newport on 15 September 1906, bound for Cuba, and reached Havana on the 21st, ready to protect the city from attack if necessary. The battleship remained at Havana until 18 October, when she sailed for Sewall's Point, Virginia.

Virginia disembarked General Frederick Funston (reciently becoming infamous as commander of the garrison at Presidio following the San Francisco Earthquake ... he would later puncuate his carear as leader of the unsuccessful manhunt for Mexican bandit Pancho Villa) at Norfolk upon her arrival there and coaled before heading north to Tompkinsville to await further orders. She shifted soon thereafter to the New York Navy Yard where she was coaled and drydocked to have her hull bottom painted before undergoing repairs and alterations at the Norfolk Navy Yard from 3 November 1906 to 18 February 1907. After installation of fire control apparatus at the New York Navy Yard between 19 February and 23 March, the battleship sailed once more for Cuban waters, joining the fleet at Guantanamo Bay on 28 March.

Virginia fired target practices in Cuban waters before she sailed for Hampton Roads on 10 April to participate in the Jamestown Exposition festivities. She remained in Hampton Roads for a month, from 15 April to 15 May, before she underwent repairs at the Norfolk Navy Yard into early June. Subsequently reviewed in Hampton Roads by President Theodore Roosevelt between 7 and 13 June, Virginia shifted northward for target practices on the target grounds of Cape Cod Bay -- evolutions that lasted from mid-June to mid-July. She later cruised with her division to Newport; the North River, New York City; and to Provincetown, Massachusetts, before conducting day and night battle practice in Cape Cod Bay.

Returning southward early that autumn, Virginia underwent two months of repairs and alterations at the Norfolk Navy, Yard, from 24 September to 24 November, before undergoing further repairs at the New York Navy Yard later in November. She subsequently shifted southward again, reaching Hampton Roads on 6 December.

Virginia spent the, next 10 days preparing for a feat never before attempted around-the-world cruise by the battleships of the Atlantic Fleet. The voyage, regarded by President Roosevelt as a dramatic gesture to the Japanese -- who, like the United States, had only recently emerged on the world stage as a power to be reckoned with -- proved to be a signal success, with the ships performing so well as to confound the doomsayers who had predicted a fiasco.

The cruise began eight days before Christmas of 1907, and ended on Washington's Birthday, 22 February 1909. During the course of the voyage, the ships called at ports along both coasts of South America; on the west coast of the United States; at Hawaii; in the Philippines; Japan; China; and in Ceylon. Virginiia's division also visited Smyrna, Turkey, via Beirut, during the Mediterranean leg of the cruise. Both upon departure and upon arrival, the fleet was reviewed at Hampton Roads by President Roosevelt, whose "big stick" diplomacy and flair for the dramatic gesture had been practically personified by the cruise of the "Great White Fleet.

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