The Great White Fleet Battleship Wisconsin

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USS Wisconsin, Fourth Division Flagship

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.

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