USS Vixen (PY-4)
USS Vixen, photographed in 1898, with sails hoisted on both masts.
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| History | |
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  United States
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| Name: | USS Vixen |
| Namesake: | A female fox. |
| Owner: | |
| Builder: | Lewis Nixon, Elizabethport, New Jersey |
| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: | 1896 |
| Acquired: | 9 April 1898 |
| Commissioned: | 11 April 1898 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard |
| Recommissioned: | 2 April 1917 |
| Decommissioned: | 15 November 1922 |
| Struck: | 9 January 1923 |
| Fate: | sold on 22 June 1923 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | schooner-rigged, steam yacht |
| Displacement: | 806 long tons (819 t) |
| Length: | 182 ft 3 in |
| Beam: | 28 ft 0 in |
| Draft: | 12 ft 8 in (mean) |
| Propulsion: | steam engine and schooner sail |
| Speed: | 16.0 knots |
| Complement: | 5 officers and 74 enlisted |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: | steel-hulled |
| Notes: | |
USS Vixen (PY-4) was a yacht acquired by the U.S. Navy for operations in the Spanish–American War, where she served with distinction during the Battle of Santiago. She was commissioned again for duty during World War I when she was assigned to patrol the U.S. East Coast.
Josephine—a steel-hulled, schooner-rigged, steam yacht—was built in 1896 at Elizabethport, New Jersey, by Lewis Nixon and, at the time of her acquisition by the U.S. Navy on 9 April 1898, was owned by the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, financier Peter Arrell Brown Widener. The United States Navy purchased the yacht for $150,000 on 9 April 1898. Renamed Vixen, the erstwhile pleasure craft was armed and fitted out for naval service at the Philadelphia Navy Yard where she was commissioned on 11 April 1898, Lt. Alex Sharp in command.
Assigned to the North Atlantic Station, Vixen sailed for Cuban waters on 7 May and arrived off the coast of Cuba nine days later. For the duration of the "splendid little war", the graceful armed yacht performed a variety of duties, blockading and patrolling, carrying mail and flags of truce, ferrying prisoners, establishing communications with Cuban insurgents ashore, and landing reconnaissance parties. Among her passengers embarked during that time was Colonel (later President) Theodore Roosevelt, of the famous "Rough Riders". Also aboard during that time period was Midshipman, later Admiral, Thomas C. Hart. Arthur MacArthur III, General Douglas MacArthur's brother, served on Vixen during the Battle of Santiago.
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