Only Maine-built battleship launched Oct. 11,’04

A century ago today, the first and only battleship ever built in Maine slid down the ways at Bath Iron Works into the Kennebec River. The USS Georgia one day would sail around the world, but never fire a shot.

Maine already had bragging rights to many achievements in shipbuilding, but this, the largest vessel built here until the 1960s, gave the industry a whole new meaning.

The Industrial Journal, a Bangor publication whose columns were usually as staid and dry as its name suggests, waxed positively giddy with enthusiasm as it covered the launch of the 440-foot Georgia on Oct. 11, 1904.

It was “an epochal event in the annals of Maine shipbuilding. It was hands across the revolutionary and historic Thirteen, a reach from north to south and from south to north, from Maine to Georgia and from Georgia to Maine. … The occasion was … a red-letter day for Maine’s calendar, a day of triumph, of joy, of successful achievement in industrial enterprise. It was the grandest and most spectacular launching ever witnessed in the Dirigo State.”

And as if that weren’t enough, the writer declared, “Maine and Georgia kissed each other – metaphorically speaking.”

Maine had reason to be proud. Five battleships had been authorized by President Theodore Roosevelt and Congress in 1899 and 1900, and a Maine shipyard had gotten one of the contracts at a time when the state’s industry was having a hard time of it.

Plagued by a shortage of skilled workers, BIW had done nothing but work on the Georgia for the past three years. Some people had questioned whether the yard had taken on more than it could handle after its crane barge capsized when a massive steel plate was “boomed out” too far, damaging the yet-to-be-completed battleship, according to Ralph L. Snow in his history of BIW.

The ship slid into the river after Miss Stella Tate, sister of a Georgia congressman, whacked its bow with a pint of G. H. Mumm & Co.’s Extra Dry, and sawyers cut the vessel free with two 8-foot crosscut saws especially made for the event. It took only 50 seconds from start to finish thanks to 10 barrels of grease. As sirens blared, steam whistles bellowed and the crowd, estimated at 20,000, cheered, the band played “Dixie,” a sure sign that the Civil War was over.

Miss Stella, described as “a charming, typical Southern maiden,” had come up from the Peach State on a special car owned by the Southern Railway Co. She was accompanied by a host of luminaries including Gov. Joseph Terrell and his “bright and vivacious” wife, who reportedly shouted, “Go it! Georgia!” as Miss Stella baptised the huge vessel.

Plenty of Maine dignitaries were also on hand including the ever popular Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a fixture at civic events back then.

All the hoopla, of course, was only the icing on the cake of portentous international events that had caused national leaders to summon up this “creation of marvelous beauty and power – an evangel of peace – a striking demonstration of the genius of man, and his dominance over inert matter and the forces of nature,” in the words of the Industrial Journal.

The threat of a world war was hanging in the air even then, well before the first one. The Russians and the Japanese were slugging it out, and the English and the Germans were circling each other with suspicion and a new generation of weapons of mass destruction.

The Spanish-American War had catapulted the United States into the ranks of imperialistic powers. What the country lacked in firepower, its soldiers made up for in enthusiasm. But the need for a stronger armed force, including more warships, was recognized by nearly everyone.

Unfortunately, shortly after the Georgia was launched, it and every other battleship in the world were rendered obsolete by a new British warship, the H.M.S. Dreadnought, which offered superior speed and firepower, thus setting off a whole new arms race.

Hence, the Georgia never got to the battlefront in its 14 years of active duty. It did, however, have one shining moment in 1908-09 when it sailed around the world as part of “The Great White Fleet,” President Roosevelt’s way of showing the rest of the world the United States was now a naval power.

Ironically, Roosevelt’s greatest opponent in this endeavor was a Maine Republican, Sen. Eugene Hale, chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee. Like many people, Hale was worried about provoking a war with Japan, prompting Roosevelt in his characteristic intemperate manner to accuse the Ellsworth lawyer of being “a physical coward” and “a conscienceless voluptuary.”

A public relations triumph for Roosevelt, the voyage by the Georgia and the other war ships convinced the world that the United States was not a power to ignore. But it also pointed out obvious weaknesses. The country’s reliance on foreign ports for fueling and provisioning, for example, showed that a shipping supply train would be needed in the event of war.

The USS Georgia spent 14 years in active duty, but it never entered a war zone until after the armistice was signed ending World War I. Its job was to transport thousands of doughboys from Europe back to the United States.

Then the ship that took Maine workers years to build was decommissioned in 1920 and sold for scrap three years later in accordance with an international disarmament treaty.

Wayne E. Reilly has edited two books of Civil War era diaries and letters including “The Diaries of Sarah Jane and Emma Ann Foster: A Year in Maine During the Civil War.” He can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.