{"id":72,"date":"2026-07-11T15:31:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T19:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/InternInsights\/?p=72"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T18:52:17","slug":"spanish-american-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fallriverhistorical.org\/InternInsights\/spanish-american-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish-American War"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Conrad Krapf<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Today, in Intern\u2019s Insights<\/strong>, we\u2019re looking at a marvelous collection of photographs from the Spanish-American War. Donated to the Fall River Historical Society in 1946 by Sarah Hathaway French (1877-1953), it contains ninety-seven photographs of the USS Prairie<\/em>, her crew, visiting naval officers, and the Cuban countryside as viewed from a ship. Since it was donated, it has remained in our collection, waiting for analysis and description. Starting this year, I endeavored to do just that.<\/span><\/p>\n

The album contains photographs dating to 1898, taken during the Spanish-American War. It is a binding of pale blue moir\u00e9-covered boards with the words \u201cPhotogs\u201d tooled in silver, and \u201cU.S.S. Prairie, Spanish American War, 1898\u201d tooled in gilt. Blue fabric covers the spine, stamped with decorative devices in silver. This type of photography, albumen print, uses an emulsion of egg whites and sodium chloride to create a glossy surface that holds a coating of silver nitrate, \u201cprinting\u201d a photograph when exposed to UV light filtered through a negative. After exposure to the negative, it is \u201cfixed\u201d with an immersion of sodium thiosulfate, which prevents further darkening of the image. These photographs were almost certainly taken by either Navy photographers, or war correspondents, who routinely traveled on naval vessels. Albumen printing was, at the time of the photographs creation, the most common style of photography, mostly because of its (relatively) non-toxic process and ease of production, and especially because, unlike tintypes and other such photographic processes, albumen prints could be produced from the negative repeatedly. But what story was found within this album?<\/span><\/p>\n

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In 1898, political pressure finally succeeded in pushing the American President, William McKinley (1843-1901), into war against Spain. Spanish treatment of its colonial holding in Cuba, so close to the United States that news traveled easily, had primed the public for conflict against men with titles like \u201cThe Butcher.\u201d Fortified concentration camps and mass extermination of rural Cubans who refused relocation resulted in horrific civilian casualties and was a slap in the face to an America not so far from the war that had ended slavery. The sinking of the USS Maine<\/em> in February of that year, sent to protect American citizens in Cuba, was enough to make Congress force McKinley into the war.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the Spanish-American War stretched across the world, from the Philippines to Puerto Rico, it was events in Cuba that started the war, and it is there where our story is set.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to liberate Cuba from Spanish control, the island had to have its communication cut and a naval blockade enacted. The problem that the United States Navy faced was that they simply did not have enough sailors for the number of vessels that they had. This problem was not new. In 1888, multiple states began reopening their Naval Militia forces, which had last been activated for the War of 1812, so that they could act as a sort of reserve force in the event of war. These forces were generally young men who viewed their service as a hobby, and the Navy viewed them in turn as a potential liability, rather than a reserve force. But when the Spanish-American War began, these forces had to be activated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Photograph<\/a>

Photograph of Lynward French<\/p><\/div>\n

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Part of the Morgan Line of merchant vessels, the Prairie<\/em>, originally named El Sol<\/em>, was purchased by the Navy in 1898 from the Southern Pacific Company and converted into an auxiliary cruiser. These vessels were essentially armed merchant vessels in the service of their nation\u2019s navy. The Prairie<\/em> was one of four auxiliary cruisers purchased from the Morgan Line for use by militiamen, with her sister ships Yankee<\/em>, Dixie<\/em>, and Yosemite<\/em> also containing crews made of combined regular sailors and militiamen. The Prairie<\/em> was staffed primarily by Massachusetts Naval Militiamen, many of whom came from Fall River and New Bedford, and it was sent off to Cuba to aid the blockade against the island.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Photograph<\/a>

Photograph of U.S.S. Prairie<\/p><\/div>\n

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During the Spanish-American War, the American Navy was faced with the dilemma of the Spanish Navy. While Spain\u2019s Navy was at its weakest position in centuries, it was still a large and formidable threat, and it was a truly professional navy that sailed across the entire world to Spanish colonial holdings. The Prairie<\/em> was sent to Cuba in the effort to gain control of the island, joining a large detachment of battleships, cruisers, colliers, and monitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\u201cReina<\/a>

\u201cReina Mercides in channel at Santiago.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

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On arriving off Cuba, the Prairie<\/em> found itself in control of a squadron, trading flagship status with other ships in its detachment. Their job was denying resupply to Cuba by blockading the shore, and on the night of the Fourth of July, they gained their first chance to do so. A Spanish ship, the Alphonso XII<\/em>, attempted to steam past, but sight of it was lost in inclement weather. Soon afterwards, however, two smaller vessels closer to the coast regained sight of the vessel and failed in an attempt to board it. It had grounded itself off a sandbar, and was vulnerable to boarding. The two ships present were driven back first by machine gun fire from the Alphonso XII<\/em> and shore batteries respectively. With that information relayed, the Prairie<\/em> sailed the twenty-five miles to the scene of the battle and sank the Alphonso<\/em> XII<\/em>, as well as a patrol boat that sailed out from where the Spanish ships still in harbor waited. It also accepted the surrender of the port of Gibara by keeping the fortress in the port at a state of constant alertness, steaming towards the coast and turning at the last second, essentially faking a landing attempt.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps their most heroic moment came at the expense of naval logistics, helping to unload and refloat the liner Massachusetts<\/em> after it ran aground on a sand bank, taking a week to drag the ship back into deeper water where it might sail again. Not even a day later, the Manitoba<\/em>, of similar displacement to the Massachusetts<\/em>, ran aground in the same place, leading to another week of unloading and towing. In such a manner, the Prairie<\/em> passed its time off the shore of Cuba.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\u201cAnother<\/a>

\u201cAnother picture of French.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n


\nBut during this period, the true killer of the Spanish-American War showed itself. Despite some actual ground combat having taken place, especially in Cuba and the Philippines, the main killer was sickness. Unused to the tropical diseases that dwelled in the warm forests and jungles of the Caribbean and Pacific theaters, Yellow Fever struck thousands down. The Prairie<\/em> did not escape this fate.\u00a0 A full quarter of the ship fell ill, and Chief Boatswain’s Mate Lynward French (1871-1898) was especially sick. Placed upon the St. Paul<\/em>, a ship heading back for the United States, he died along the way and was buried with the bodies of Marines who had fallen in battle; his body was disinterred and returned to Fall River for burial at Oak Grove Cemetery in 1899. \u00a0It was, in fact, this death that allowed us to see the photographs within the album. Fellow Fall River militiamen donated some amount of money to create the album that eventually came into our possession here at the FRHS. Lynward was a well-respected man, and the fellow Fall River men who had served with him honored him. The Prairie<\/em> would make it back to America with only one embarrassing moment, running aground on a sandbar in New England, its one mark on an otherwise flawless record.<\/span><\/p>\n

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