Battleship Iowa in the Spanish American War

Battleship Iowa at sea

By the time the Spanish–American War broke out in 1898, the Iowa was one of the most powerful warships afloat. Four 12-inch guns. Thick armor. A deep, steady hull built to fight, not parade. She represented a country that had finally decided it intended to be taken seriously at sea.

The New York Times called her “a floating fortress, built less for ceremony than for punishment,” while Harper’s Weekly said the ship looked “as if she had been designed to endure blows rather than admire them.”

Much of the ship’s personality came from her captain. Charles Edgar Clark.

He believed in drills, discipline, and doing things correctly even when no one was watching. Sailors described him as calm, blunt, and unmovable once his mind was made up. Lieutenant John M. Ellicott, one of the ship’s junior officers, said Clark “spoke little, expected much, and wasted no time convincing anyone twice.”

He took command of the Iowa in the mid-1890s, when the ship was still new and the Navy was still figuring out what it wanted to be. The old navy had been a coastal force. The new navy was learning how to roam.

Clark trained the Iowa the way a man trains for a storm he knows is coming. Gunnery drills were constant. Engine tests were relentless. Damage control exercises were treated as life-and-death matters even in calm water. The ship’s log shows repeated full-speed runs followed immediately by emergency stops, drills meant to expose weaknesses before an enemy could.

Captain Charles E. Clark

Seaman First Class William H. McBride said Clark ran the ship “as if war were already declared.” The Boston Globe echoed the sentiment, saying the Iowa was “kept in fighting trim with a severity unusual even for the new steel fleet.”

That wasn’t paranoia. It was foresight.

In the years before the war, the Iowa showed the flag in the Caribbean, steamed to European ports, and practiced fleet maneuvers that assumed long-range operations and actual combat conditions. In 1897, she crossed the Atlantic as part of a display of American naval strength that drew crowds and commentary in British and French ports alike. One London paper said the Iowa “handled with the steadiness of an older navy’s pride.”

American battleships had rarely operated far from home before. These cruises proved the Iowa could stay at sea, keep station, and fight as part of a modern fleet.

Clark pushed everyone hard. He expected junior officers to know every inch of the ship. Gunners were expected to hit targets, not make excuses, and sailors were expected to think under pressure. In an official inspection report, a Navy examiner said the Iowa’s gun crews showed “a readiness and precision exceeding current service averages.”

When trouble came, none of that would be wasted.

The explosion of the Maine in Havana Harbor in February 1898 changed everything. Within weeks, war with Spain was no longer a question of if, but when. The Chicago Tribune warned that “the fleet now rides on a razor’s edge. The Des Moines Register predicted that Iowa’s namesake ship would soon “be tested by more than drills.”

The Iowa was ready.

By the time shots were fired, Clark had moved on to command the Battleship Oregon, but the ship he had shaped went to war carrying his fingerprints. The crew knew what to do without being told twice.

Command of the Iowa now rested with Captain Robley D. Evans, known throughout the Navy as “Fighting Bob.” Evans differed from Clark in temperament but similar in expectations. Where Clark was quiet and rigid, Evans was fiery and profane. Both believed in preparation.

In his memoirs, Evans said the Iowa was “as sound a fighting ship as ever answered a helm,” crediting Clark’s earlier discipline for the crew’s readiness. The Navy Department Annual Report for 1898 said the transition in command had been “accomplished without loss of efficiency or cohesion.”

The Iowa joined the North Atlantic Squadron under Rear Admiral William T. Sampson. Her first test came in blockade duty.

Captain Robley D. Evans

Blockade duty was dull, dangerous work. Long days scanning the horizon. Hot nights at battle stations. Constant readiness. Spanish ships might appear at any moment. When they did, there’d be no time to warm up. It’d be right or die.

The Iowa took her place off Cuba, sealing Spanish forces inside their harbors. The ship’s big guns were kept loaded and trained. Coal dust coated the decks. Heat turned the steel into an oven. Men slept in shifts, always within reach of their stations.

The Brooklyn Eagle described the blockade fleet as “a ring of iron patience,” while the New York Herald said the battleships off Cuba “waited like loaded springs.”

Captain Evans said the strain of blockade duty tested crews as much as battle. In an official dispatch, he said, “Constant readiness under tropical conditions demands discipline of the highest order.” Chief Gunner George A. Thompson wrote home that the waiting was worse than firing. “Your nerves stretch until you think they’ll snap.”

In late June and early July, American forces landed near Santiago de Cuba. The Army needed naval gunfire support, and the battleships delivered it.

The Iowa moved in close. Closer than battleships were supposed to. Her 12-inch guns blasted Spanish positions. The concussion rolled across the hills. Smaller guns joined in, tearing apart blockhouses and trenches. Soldiers said the naval fire felt like “the ground itself had turned against Spain,” a phrase repeated in letters published by the Kansas City Journal.

The Iowa selected its targets carefully to support the men advancing on foot. Lieutenant Ellicott said the fire was adjusted “by observation and report, not enthusiasm.”

On July 3, 1898, the Spanish fleet tried to escape. One by one, Spanish cruisers and destroyers charged out of Santiago Harbor, trying to break through the American line.

The Iowa was already moving. Orders snapped across the deck. Turrets swung. Range was taken. The ship turned to bring its broadside into play.

When the guns fired, the blast shoved men backward. The deck trembled. Smoke wrapped the ship in choking clouds. Seaman McBride said the first salvo felt “like being struck in the chest by the ship herself.”

The Spanish ships ran west, hugging the coast. The American battleships pursued, firing as they went. The Iowa kept a steady speed, hammering targets whenever they came into range. One Spanish cruiser burned fiercely. Another ran itself aground. Destroyers vanished under gunfire.

The New York Times said the Iowa’s fire was “deliberate and crushing,” while the Baltimore Sun noted that her shots “fell with a regularity that spoke of drill rather than fury.”

The battle lasted only a few hours, but it felt like an eternity to those inside it. Sailors fed ammunition until their arms shook. Gunners worked by instinct and training, not thought. Gun Captain James Ellis later remembered nothing but “noise, heat, and doing the next thing.”

The Iowa took no serious damage. Her armor held. Her guns performed. The crew stayed disciplined even as the sea filled with wreckage and survivors. Evans reported with pride that no station was abandoned and no order misunderstood.

By early afternoon, it was over. The Spanish Atlantic fleet was destroyed. The victory at Santiago ended Spain’s ability to continue the war at sea. Admiral Sampson reported the outcome was “complete and decisive beyond expectation.”

The Iowa remained on station afterward, guarding against any lingering threats and assisting where needed. She carried prisoners, helped maintain order, and stood as a symbol of America’s new role on the world’s oceans. The San Francisco Call said the ship “embodied the hard fact of American sea power.”

Quartermaster Henry L. Adams, wrote home that the ship felt “like a wall that nothing could break.” Fireman Patrick O’Neill said the crew trusted the Iowa the way infantry trusted a good trench.

Captain Clark watched it all from a different deck. His command of the Oregon became legendary, especially her long, punishing dash around South America to reach the war. That voyage made Clark famous. But the Iowa was where he had laid his foundation.

He had helped shape one of the first true American battleships into a fighting machine. He had proven that preparation mattered more than speeches, and that habits built in peacetime decided outcomes in war.

The Spanish–American War was short, but it marked a turning point.

Ships like the Iowa made that possible. After the war, the Iowa trained sailors, cruised widely, and took part in maneuvers that assumed the United States would now operate far from its own shores.

The United States was now a global power, and the Battleship Iowa had helped make it possible.