The USS South Carolina by a congressional naval appropriation act of 3 March 1905 allowed the construction of a battleship that would later be christened the USS South Carolina. The following year, on 21 July 1906, the Cramp Steamship Company of Philadelphia signed a contract to build the seven million dollar.
This would the fourth ship that would plow the seas in honor of South Carolina. The first was a schooner built circa 1790 for the Revenue Cutter Service. The second was a coastal patrol boat for the merchant marines, and the third was a screw steamer built in 1860 to serve the Confederate States Navy.
On 11 July 1908 Miss Frederica Ansel, daughter of South Carolina Governor, Martin Ansel, christened the USS South Carolina, dubbed “a skyscraper a block long”. Amid cheers from a delegation from South Carolina and other dignitaries, the ship slid out of its dry dock at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Now afloat, the ship was completed and turned over to the US Navy on 21 December 1909. She was commissioned on 6 March 1910 with Captain A. F. Fechteler at the helm.
The South Carolina was the Navy’s first dreadnought. The ship was eighty feet wide and 450 feet long with a load displacement of 16,000 tons. She was powered by 17,000 horsepower turning two immense propellers and could reach nearly nineteen knots (approximately 22 miles) an hour. She was armed with the latest development in artillery. The floating fortress carried more heavy guns than any other, along with two torpedo tubes. The main battery of guns consisted of eight, twelve-inch breech-loading rifles mounted in four turrets. The barrels of these guns were forty-five feet long and arranged so they all can be aimed in the same direction, delivering a heavy payload. They could deliver an 870-pound payload every three or four minutes for a distance of 12 miles, capable of penetrating 10-inch armor. The second battery consisted of twenty-two 3-inch guns throwing thirteen pound shells, used mainly to protect the ship from torpedo boats. The South Carolina had no any intermediate sized guns due to a lesson learned in the Japanese-Russian conflict that they were of little value against torpedo strikes. The ship was clad in twelve inches of steel armor with ten to twelve on the barbettes and turrets.
The general view of the South Carolina was different than any other vessel in the US Navy. Solid masts or conning towers were rejected for newer, open masts. The arrangement of the turrets, mounted in pairs, two forward and two aft. Congress had limited the displacement of 16,000 tons in reference to a treaty, so to save weight a deck was eliminated. She sailed into the Charleston harbor on 11 April 1910, welcomed by booming cannons and fluttering flags. Crowds filled the city for the several days of festivities when 5,000 toured the ship. In an elaborate ceremony on 12 April a presentation of a 65 piece silver service was made to Captain Fechteler and the crew of the USS South Carolina. The service was commissioned by the State Legislature, which was designed and made by Gorham Company. Among the numerous pieces was a seven-gallon punch bowl with ladle, goblets and plateau, and a cedar lined humidor with a capacity of 300 cigars.
When the ship was decommissioned, the silver service was delivered to the Daughters of the American Revolution, who placed it in the old Exchange Building in Charleston. In 1947, with the aid of Governor Strom Thurmond, the DAR placed it in the Governor’s Mansion in Columbia for state occasions. It can be seen there today on tours of the mansion.
She spent most of her career operating off the east coast of the United States and the Caribbean. She made several trips to Europe in 1910 and 1911, and during 1913-1914 the South Carolina joined in heavy support involving the US interventions in Haiti and Vera Cruz, Mexico. During the First World War she continued being active in the Western Hemisphere but in 1918 escorted a convoy half way across the Atlantic. After the war, in 1919, she made four voyages to France to bring home 4,000 soldiers. The following year the dreadnought carried Naval Academy midshipmen to the pacific, visiting west coast ports and Hawaii before returning to the Atlantic via the Panama Canal. She made the second such voyage in 1921 to Europe.
Following President Harding’s disarmament conference, the eleven years old USS South Carolina was decommissioned in December 1921 at her port of origin. In November 1923 she was removed from the naval list and scrapped. The remains of this once threatening battleship was sold for scrap in 1924.
A fifth USS South Carolina was commissioned in January 1975, this time appearing as a missile cruiser, the second in the California Class of nuclear powered vessels. She was 596 feet long and was manned by a crew of 500. This vessel was decommissioned in the Charleston Harbor on 11 August 1998. Though its only been seven years since a naval vessel christened the South Carolina has plowed the seas, I’m sure you will agree, it’s about time that another USS South Carolina joined the Navy.
J.L. West – Author
This article and many others found on the pages of Roots and Recall, were written by author J.L. West, for the YC Magazine and have been reprinted on R&R, with full permission – not for distribution or reprint!
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