Admiral Dewey’s politely framed order signaled the beginning of the Battle of Manila Bay and the end of Spanish rule in the Philippines with the destruction of the Spanish Pacific Fleet by the US Asiatic Fleet with Dewey in command and Gridley as captain of his flagship, the armored cruiser USS Olympia. This group of three buttons from Gridley’s coats come from the collections of the Texas Civil War Museum with a very nicely done, handwritten ink card reading, “Service & Dress Buttons from the coats of Captain Chas. Gridley to whom Admiral Dewey gave the now famous command ‘Fire when you’re ready Gridley.’” The writing looks to us about mid-1900s, perhaps by a female member of the family. (He had a son and two daughters.)

Two of the buttons are actually GAR buttons, membership in which Gridley was entitled from his Civil War service, including under Farragut, at Mobile Bay. Those uniforms perhaps being mistaken by the family as his “service” dress. The larger of the two has a Waterbury Button Co. back mark. The smaller has an unmarked tin back. The third is a large size U.S. Navy officer’s button with a “J. & Co. / LONDON” backmark, which might be Jennens & Company, though Tice lists three by that company, all with the full name.

Born in 1844, Gridley had entered the U.S. Naval academy in 1860 as an acting midshipman and in October 1863 made acting ensign. He served first on the USS Oneida in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and under Farragut at Mobile Bay in 1864 was a lookout on a ship’s mast as vessel negotiated the mine-filled of the bay in the battle of August 1864. His postwar service included duty on the Brooklyn, the Michigan (aka Wolverine,) teaching at the Naval Academy, duty on the Trenton, work on the development of torpedoes (in the modern, not Civil War, sense,) duty as a training officer, and lighthouse inspector, followed by service at the Boston Navy Yard, with the Asiatic Squadron, then more stateside duties inspecting light houses, before again joining the Asiatic Squadron in 1897. Gridley made master in 1866; lieutenant in 1867; lieutenant commander in 1869; commander in 1882; and captain in 1897, when he was assigned to the Asiatic Squadron as Captain of the USS Olympia, Admiral Dewey’s flagship, then in Japan.

Although residents of the U.S. Pacific coast felt endangered by the Spanish fleet when war was declared, the battle on May 1, 1898, was a rather one-sided affair despite the presence of mines and shore batteries, with the Spanish vessels offering some gallant but futile resistance, being outgunned and manning inferior ships with crews that were out of practice.

Gridley outlived the naval victory with which he will be forever associated by little more than a month. Sick with dysentery and perhaps with liver cancer, service during the battle in the stifling conditions of the Olympia’s armored conning tower, refusing to be relieved by Dewey, proved the last straw, and he died on his way back to the U.S. on June 5, 1898.  [SR][PH:L]

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