USS Amphitrite (BM-2) - Early Service

Early Service

During the course of the late spring and summer, the monitor, assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron, visited eastern seaboard ports: Savannah, Georgia (17 to 23 May), Port Royal, South Carolina (23 May to 8 June), Brunswick, Georgia (23 to 28 July), Southport, North Carolina, (2 to 10 August) and a return visit to Port Royal (12 to 20 August), interspersing these port visits with operations out of Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay. Early in the course of this period of operations, the combination of defects in the design of monitors in general (inadequate ventilation for engine room forces, particularly) and the summer heat produced hellish conditions on board Amphitrite, in some cases actually felling members of the "black gang" who had to carry out their tasks in the ship's engine and fire rooms.

Following post-shakedown repairs and alterations at Norfolk, Amphitrite sailed on 20 November 1895 for Annapolis, Maryland, arriving there on the following day. Dropping down to the York River and Lynnhaven Bay soon thereafter, the monitor conducted target practice at Hampton Roads before returning to Norfolk. She then proceeded south from Norfolk on 13 December 1895 for the lower eastern seaboard. She visited Charleston, South Carolina en route, and reached Key West on 9 January 1896. She remained at Key West, drilling naval militia, for six months, departing the Florida port on 10 June for a succession of ports, Brunswick, Savannah, and Southport, ultimately arriving back at Norfolk on 29 June. She served on naval militia instruction at Norfolk until 9 July, when she accompanied the Atlantic Squadron on drills off Tolchester Beach, Maryland. She spent the next several months operating between Norfolk, Charleston, and Tompkinsville, Staten Island, into early May 1897. While operating out of Charleston between February and April 1897, she conducted underway training on the average of three days per month.

Detached from the Atlantic Squadron on 7 May 1897, Amphitrite served as a training ship for the instruction of gun captains. As such, she was apparently placed in ordinary at Norfolk, since she was not recommissioned until 2 October 1897, with Capt. Charles J. Barclay in command. The men she placed in service soon proved to be invaluable in the war with Spain. Some 45 trained gun captains "who had received exact training fit to match the modern gun", gave a "good account of themselves" in action against Spanish ships. Clearing Hampton Roads on 5 October, the monitor visited New Bedford, Massachusetts, from 7 to 23 October, and Tompkinsville from 24 October to 12 November, before she returned south, to Lambert's Point, Virginia, arriving on 14 November.

Clearing Hampton Roads on 16 November, Amphitrite reached Port Royal on 19 November, and remained there for over a month. After visiting Charleston from 23 December 1897 to 1 January 1898, she then returned to Port Royal, remaining there for over three months.