American War Hero · Spanish–American War · Notice Nearby
Wikimedia Commons — File:Capt. Charles D. Sigsbee, Commander of the U.S. battleship Maine LCCN2004669141.jpg (Public domain)
Charles Dwight Sigsbee
January 16, 1845 – July 13, 1923
Born Albany, New York
Died New York City, New York
Captain, U.S. Navy; commanding officer USS Maine in Havana Harbor when destroyed February 15, 1898; later Rear Admiral; Spanish–American War naval service
Charles Dwight Sigsbee was on the bridge of public attention the night USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. As the battleship’s captain he ordered boats away, accounted for survivors, and filed the first formal reports that reached Washington — language preserved in Navy court-of-inquiry records. The explosion killed 266 of his crew and became the flashpoint for the war that followed; Sigsbee’s own later commands included North Atlantic and Caribbean duty as a rear admiral.
Hydrographic survey work and the peacetime Navy years fill earlier folders. This register lists the Maine command and the February 1898 disaster as documented: ship, harbor, date, and the captain’s report. Sigsbee died in New York in 1923. The Library of Congress portrait on Wikimedia Commons is public domain. He is not marked missing.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1898-008
- Content hash
- 7b8b56c0 899b821d 6a928deb 1f658cea cdc65307 63eab8b2 fb137b5d 857ce539
- Base anchor
- 0xfd60d6 f52651a8 125db890 a9c3e3eb 820675f5 d2c0f55c e2d0bf28 cc3ef172 3f
Base stores the content hash, publication number, memorial id, and timestamp — not the full obituary text. The complete memorial remains on Notice Nearby. This is not a legal affidavit.