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Ships of the Spanish-American War, Miscellaneous Ships

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Any complex organization contains units that just don't fit in its main categories. The Spanish-American War Navy was no exception, and it had a few ships that were distinctly non-standard. One of these, USS Vesuvius, was armed with three very large air rifles, which fired high-explosive projectiles up to a mile and a half. In June and July 1898, she bombarded Spanish forces at Santiago, Cuba. USS Katahdin was the Navy's only ram ship, a class of warship whose main weapon was herself. She served along the U.S. Atlantic Coast to defend against the possibility of a Spanish Navy raid.

USS East Boston and Governor Russell were ferryboats. The former served in that capacity in Boston harbor, while the latter was converted to a shallow-draft gunboat. Finally, the aptly-named USS Arctic was employed to transport refrigerated stores in the Philadelphia and Delaware Bay areas.
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This Day in History
1738: English parliament declares war on Spain.

1800: The USS Essex becomes first U.S. Navy vessel to pass the Cape of Good Hope.

1814: The HMS Phoebe and Cherub capture the USS Essex off Valparaiso, Chile.

1854: Britain and France declare war on Russia.

1862: Union forces stop the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory when they turn the Rebels back at Glorieta Pass.

1864: A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, Illinois. Five are killed and twenty wounded.

1917: The Womens Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is founded, Great Britains first official service women.

1939: The Spanish Civil War ends as Madrid falls to Francisco Franco.

1941: Andrew Browne Cunningham, Admiral of the British Fleet, commands the British Royal Navys destruction of three major Italian battleships and two destroyers in the Battle of Cape Matapan in the Mediterranean.

1942: A British ship, the HMS Capbeltown, a Lend-Lease American destroyer, which was specifically rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, explodes, knocking the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.