Qualla: USS Texas (1892)

USS Texas (1892): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Howard Chandler Christy, Public domain. In 1883, Brazil took delivery of the ironclad Riachuelo, and the U.S. Navy realized it had a problem. The Brazilian Navy was suddenly the most powerful in the Western Hemisphere, and as one congressman put it, if the old American fleet ever met the Riachuelo in mid-ocean, it was doubtful a single American ship would make it home. The response was Texas - America's first commissioned battleship, designed by a British firm in Barrow-in-Furness, laid down at the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1889, and launched in 1892. By the time she entered service in 1895, her main armament arrangement was already obsolete. She would run aground, flood at the pier, and earn the nickname 'Old Hoodoo' before redeeming herself in the Spanish-American War. Then the Navy that built her would sink her in the Chesapeake Bay as a gunnery target, where her hull still rests two to six feet below the surface in Tangier Sound.

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Image: Howard Chandler Christy | Public domain

USS Texas (1892): The Riachuelo Problem

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nyttend, Public domain. South American naval modernization in the 1880s caught the United States off guard. Brazil, Argentina, and Chile were buying modern armored warships from European yards. Congressman Hilary A. Herbert, chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee, characterized the gap brutally. The...

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Image: Nyttend | Public domain

USS Texas (1892): Old Hoodoo

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Public domain. The accidents began before Texas was even commissioned. Her keel was laid in June 1889, but stability concerns delayed construction for nearly eight months. After her trials, the floors had buckled their brackets and the cement near the keel had cracked - structural problems that...

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Image: National Museum of the U.S. Navy | Public domain

USS Texas (1892): Santiago de Cuba

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Old Hoodoo's redemption came in Cuba. On May 18, 1898, with Captain John W. Philip in command, Texas was at Key West, preparing to enforce the blockade. Three days later she arrived off Cienfuegos with the Flying Squadron. She bombarded a Spanish fort in Guantanamo Bay and suppor...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

USS Texas (1892): The Long Decommissioning

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. After the war, Texas resumed peacetime patrols. A 1900-1902 refit raised her funnel and topmasts, doubled the armor over her ammunition hoists, and removed her broadside torpedo tubes. By 1908, she had become the station ship at Charleston, South Carolina. By 1910, she was obsole...

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Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

USS Texas (1892): Tangier Sound

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carmen Shields from United States, CC BY 2.0. On March 21 and 22, 1911, the battleship New Hampshire fired on San Marcos in shallow water in Tangier Sound, Chesapeake Bay. There were so many holes below her waterline by the end that the water in her forward and rear compartments moved with the bay outside. The interior above...

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Image: Carmen Shields from United States | CC BY 2.0