“Remember the Maine!”: The USS Maine’s Destruction 117 Years Later

Today, Billy Griffith takes a look at the destruction of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba, which occurred on this date 117 years ago, and explains his personal connection to this monumental event in American History

It was ten minutes past nine o’clock on the night of February 15, 1898 when bugler C.H. Newton solemnly played “Taps,” signaling the 350 crewmen aboard the battleship U.S.S. Maine to retire to their bunks for sleep. Thirty minutes later an explosion rocked Havana, Cuba as the harbor illuminated with embers and flames. “I was just closing a letter to my family when I felt the crash of the explosion,” recalled the ship’s captain, Charles D. Sigsbee. “It was a bursting, rending, and crashing sound, or roar of immense volume, largely metallic in character. It was succeeded by a metallic sound – probably of falling debris – a trembling and lurching motion of the vessel,” he continued, “then an impression of subsidence, attended by an eclipse of the electric lights and intense darkness within the cabin. I knew immediately that the MAINE had been blown up and that she was sinking.”[1]

USS Maine

As the Maine lay engulfed in fire and sparking cables, rescue boats made their way to the wreckage in an attempt to save those thrown into the water by the blast and others who had tried to escape. Unfortunately, their efforts would not prove fruitful enough. Two-hundred and fifty eight American crewmen were dead and another eight would die from their wounds in a Havana hospital. Outraged by the tragic incident, the United States government initially placed the blame on the Spanish Empire and an underwater mine strategically placed in the harbor that would send a message to President William McKinley and his administration – a message to leave Spain’s Cuban colony alone. With American citizens and economic interests on the island threatened, congress approved McKinley’s declaration of war in April 1898 and the country plunged into its first oversea conflict, rallying behind the battle cry, “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!” By August the fighting was over and America emerged as an imperial power.

Later naval courts of inquiry and modern day studies have since come to the conclusion that Spain was most likely not the ones to be blamed for the Maine’s destruction. In fact, the explosion that destroyed the ship actually came from inside the vessel and not externally as would have been caused by a submerged mine. The main perpetrator was most likely the spontaneous combustion of coal in the ship’s coal bunker that just so happened to be situated on the other side of the Maine’s powder magazines. In such humid and scorching hot conditions the coal actually warmed up enough to cause the ammunition and powder on the other side of the wall to explode. Although it was a smart idea to keep the munitions storage deeper within the ship so it could remain further away from the ships exterior and incoming enemy torpedoes, placing the coal bunker directly beside it was not thought through.

One of the bodies pulled out of the wreckage that warm Cuban night was Coal Passer John Henry Ziegler’s – my great-great-great uncle. A native of New Brunswick, New Jersey, John had just celebrated his twenty-third birthday while onboard the Maine in Havana Harbor ten days earlier. His remains were brought back to Key West, Florida, where the Maine had been stationed for the winter months not even a month prior, before arriving off the coast of Cuba on January 25. On March 1, John and twenty-three of his crewmates were laid to rest in Key West Cemetery, but for some reason all Navy casualty reports had listed him as “missing.” When the Navy contacted the families of the deceased giving them the opportunity to have their loved one’s remains returned home for burial, John’s mother (my great-great-great grandmother) requested to have her son’s body sent to New Jersey. The Navy could not comply, informing her that they did not know of John’s whereabouts and it was most likely that his body was just too mangled to be identified.

John Henry Ziegler

This was the family story accepted up until 2009 when I decided to dive into an investigation and find out what truly was the fate of my fallen ancestor. After months of researching newspapers and naval records, a few phone calls led me to the sexton of the Key West Cemetery and the discovery of John’s remains. There, amidst the U.S.S. Maine memorial and his brothers-in-arms stands the grave marker of John Henry Ziegler… with his name inscribed upon it! How did the Navy not know what happened to his body when it was identified and buried in Key West? This is just a question that remains unanswered now and probably will for generations of my family to come.

Following my find and a handful of local newspaper articles written about it, in February 2010 my family and the Manville VFW dedicated a memorial stone to John Henry in the Ziegler’s North Brunswick cemetery plot. In attendance were over fifty people and not a single eye was left dry during and after the ceremony. It was finally closure for myself and my family. Although John’s body is interred with his comrades in Key West (which I am sure that he would have wanted it that way), his spirit is now home, his memory honored within the confines of his family grave plot. Resting beside him is his mother – hopefully receiving closure for herself as well.

Every February 15 that passes has had a somber effect upon me. It is a day that will forever hold a place in my heart just as I’m sure it did for the Ziegler’s and the families who lost a son that night in 1898. After all the research and passion put into solving this family mystery, I truly feel as if I had known him. When 9:40 rolls around tonight, just like I have been doing for the past six years, I will take a moment to pause and remember John Henry Ziegler and his crewmates that were lost far too soon.

Billy Griffith beside a memorial stone dedicated to Ziegler in Evergreen Cemetery, North Brunswick, NJ

[1] Everett, Marshall, ed., War with Spain and the Filipinos (Chicago: Book Publishers Union, 1899) 47-49.

Abraham Lincoln’s 206th Birthday

On this day 206 years ago, Abraham Lincoln was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky. His story is obviously well-known and thus will not be discussed here but today, GTR History wanted to offer a few quotes from our 16th President that apply to our task of perpetuating history’s stories for future generations. “The struggle of today, is not altogether for today–it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence, all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.”–Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861

“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility.”–Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

Personalities of the Past: Henry Kyd Douglas

Today, we begin another reoccurring series that will give readers a brief glimpse into the lives of certain personalities throughout history. Our person of interest this afternoon is Henry Kyd Douglas, a young staff officer who served with “Stonewall” Jackson and later penned a well-known memoir regarding his wartime experiences.

Henry K. Douglas

Born in Shepherdstown, Virginia on 29 September 1838, Douglas spent his youth living on both sides of the Potomac, most notably with his father at “Ferry Hill”. As war clouds loomed during the mid-19^th century, Douglas made it clear that he had no feeling of resentment against northerners, and believed that slavery was a curse to the Middle States. After the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, Douglas traveled to St. Louis to practice law. “I did not believe our people would ever take up arms against each other,” Douglas assured himself, “I could not make myself believe that there could be a dissolution of the Union … I was so much opposed to it.”

Hearing of Virginia’s Ordinance of Secession passed on 17 April 1861, he returned home to fulfill his new-found duty to defend his native state. A week after his arrival he enlisted in Company B, Second Virginia Infantry with other men from Shepherdstown, and traveled to Harper’s Ferry. It was here that Thomas Jackson took on the task of training and drilling this newly formed Confederate Army.

In June 1861, with General Robert Patterson’s army — the Department of Pennsylvania — threatening to cross the Potomac, Joseph E. Johnston ordered Douglas and Company B to return to Shepherdstown and sever any crossing points along the river. A toll bridge below Ferry Hill was set ablaze by the men and Douglas stared across the river to his boyhood home as the flames flickered off the glass windows. Remembering that his father had owned stock in the bridge, it was at this point he understood that the war had officially begun and he was now cut off from his home and family.

Serving with great distinction and gallantry, Douglas distinguished himself on the battlefield and rose through the ranks, eventually being placed on Stonewall Jackson’s staff in June 1862. During the Maryland Campaign, Jackson’s force bivouacked at Martinsburg before advancing to besiege Harper’s Ferry. The young staff officer used his familiarity with the area to a great extent during the campaign, which helped Jackson tremendously. After the Battle of Shepherdstown (September 19-20), Jackson’s Corps returned to Martinsburg and Douglas was ordered to oversee the dismemberment of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which kept him very busy.

In October 1862, as a result of the poor relationship between Douglas and Jackson, he was made Captain of Company C, 2^nd Virginia Infantry, and later appointed Inspector General of the “Stonewall” Brigade. He served now beside the brigade’s commanding officer, Elisha F. Paxton. At Chancellorsville, on the night of May 2, 1863, he and Paxton conversed about the action that would take place the following day. Douglas remembered after the war that during this conversation, Paxton spoke of not surviving the battle. “He did not seem morbid or superstitious but he spoke with earnest conviction,” remembered Douglas. Sure enough, the next day Paxton was killed at the head of the brigade.

After Jackson’s death on May 10, 1863, Henry Kyd Douglas began jumping from staff to staff of different generals. Promoted to Major as part of General Edward Johnson’s staff, at Gettysburg on July 2, Douglas was wounded and captured, spending eight months at Johnson’s Island prison. Finally ending up with Jubal Early in 1864, during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, he found himself again in Martinsburg where the B&O Railroad was again ordered to be destroyed. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, Douglas commanded a brigade at Appomattox and was present for Lee’s surrender.

When the war finally came to an end during the spring of 1865, he returned home and was held as a witness at the trial of Lincoln’s conspirators, having known some of them personally. He moved to Hagerstown, Maryland and practiced law, becoming extremely active in veteran’s affairs. During the 1870’s, Douglas led the effort to have Confederate dead still buried on the Antietam battlefield to be reinterred in Hagerstown, which succeeded. However, he was not successful later when running for office in the Maryland Senate and United States Congress. As he grew older, the veteran penned his famous memoir, I Rode With Stonewall, which unfortunately is filled with exaggerated stories about his war experiences and is considered a somewhat unreliable source. Henry Kyd Douglas died on 18 December 1903 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Douglas’s Elmwood Cemetery Gravesite

On this day in 1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame

Leroy “Satchel” Paige

On February 9, 1971, Leroy “Satchel” Page became the first Negro League veteran to be nominated and elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. As a pitcher, Paige was one of the greatest to ever play the game. He spent most of his career playing in the Negro League before making his MLB debut in 1948 at the age of 42 with the Cleveland Indians, finishing the season with a 6-1 record and a 2.48 ERA. He retired from the major leagues in 1953, but returned in 1965 to pitch three innings for the Kansas City A’s – at age 59, he became the oldest player in baseball history to ever appear in a game. It is estimated that by the end of his career, Paige had pitched at least 2,500 innings and accumulated 300 shutouts and 55 no-hitters.

When it was finally decided by the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bowie Kuhn, that a class of Negro League ballplayers should be elected to the Hall of Fame, it was agreed upon that Paige should be the first to enter. It was originally decided that there would be a separate “Negro Wing” within the Hall of Fame made special for African-Americans, but the idea aroused much controversy and was immediately dismissed before August 1971 when Paige was officially inducted.

Satchel Paige’s legacy as one of the greatest to ever pick up a baseball still lives on to this day. He was respected by all who played with him and against. The “Yankee Clipper” himself, Joe DiMaggio, even once referred to Paige as “the best and fastest pitcher I’ve ever faced.” He died on June 8, 1982 in his Kansas City home at the age of 75. “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”