Villa de Madrid (English: City of Madrid), also known by the devotional name Nuestra Señora de Atocha (English: Our Lady of Atocha), was a screw frigate of the Spanish Navy commissioned in 1863. She took part in several actions during the Chincha Islands War in 1866. She served on the rebel side during the Glorious Revolution of 1868, and her crew supported the cantonalist government of the Canton of Cartagena during the Cantonal rebellion of 1873–1874. She was decommissioned and scrapped in 1884.
Names
The name Villa de Madrid translates into English as "City of Madrid." However, the ship's name had a more specific historical meaning, honoring the Dos de Mayo (Second of May) Uprising in Madrid against occupying forces of the First French Empire on 2–3 May 1808.
The custom at the time of Villa de Madrid′s commissioning was that any Spanish Navy ship with a non-religious name had to carry an additional name that was religious in nature. Villa de Madrid thus also bore the devotional name Nuestra Señora de Atocha (English: Our Lady of Atocha), referring to a lost icon from a chapel discovered in high esparto (also known as atocha) grass during the Reconquista.
Construction and commissioning
Villa de Madrid′s construction was authorized by a royal order of 30 September 1860. Designed by the Spanish Navy engineer Juan Garcia Lomas, she was laid down at the in Spain, on 3 November 1860 as a wooden-hulled screw frigate of mixed construction with iron beams, booms, and diagonals and steam propulsion. On 5 October 1862, the first attempt at launching her failed, but she was launched successfully on 7 October 1862 in the presence of Queen regnant Isabella II.Cos-Gayón, pp. 209–210.
Villa de Madrids fitting-out followed, and between 17 March and 15 July 1863 her machinery was installed and her bottom was lined with copper. Her sea trials took place on 6 November 1863, and she was commissioned on 12 November 1863 under the command of Capitán de navío (Ship-of-the-line captain) Claudio Alvargonzález y Sánchez. Her figurehead bore the municipal coat of arms of Madrid, and her total construction cost was 5,636,975 pesetas.
Villa de Madrids smoothbore guns were mounted in a battery. Her rifled guns were mounted fore and aft, with six in her forecastle and eight on her afterdeck. She also carried two rifled guns for use aboard her launches and two howitzers and two short rifled guns for use aboard her other boats.
The Spanish Navy viewed Villa de Madrids design as successful and made plans to build five sister ships to the same design, but dropped these plans as it became apparent that armored frigates were taking the place of wooden ships in major navies.
Service history Early service Villa de Madrids first operation after commissioning was to carry a Spanish Marine Infantry unit, the 6th Marine Infantry Battalion, from Spain to Havana in the Captaincy General of Cuba, after which she returned to Spain, arriving at Cádiz. Amid tensions between Spain, Chile, and Peru, she departed Cadiz soon afterward, getting underway on 6 September 1864 for duty with the Pacific Squadron. After a transatlantic crossing, she arrived at Montevideo, Uruguay, where she rendezvoused with the Spanish Navy screw frigates and . The three ships then passed through the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific Ocean and reached Pisco, Peru, on 19 December 1864. The three ships joined the Pacific Squadron in the Chincha Islands on 30 December 1864. Villa de Madrid became the flagship of the squadron's commander, Vicealmirante (Vice admiral) José Manuel Pareja, whose predecessor Luis Hernández-Pinzón Álvarez had seized the Chincha Islands from Peru in April 1864. On 27 January 1865 a Peruvian government representative, Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco, and Pareja signed the Preliminary Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Peru and Spain, known informally as the Vivanco–Pareja Treaty, aboard Villa de Madrid in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to settle claims between the two countries that instead sparked the outbreak of the Peruvian Civil War of 1865.
Chincha Islands War The political situation in the region further deteriorated during 1865 when Pareja steamed to Valparaíso, Chile, to settle Spanish claims. When Chile refused to settle, Pareja announced a blockade of Chilean ports, and the Chincha Islands War broke out between Spain and Chile on 24 September 1865. Early setbacks in the war culminating in a humiliating Spanish naval defeat in the Battle of Papudo on 26 November 1865 prompted Pareja to commit suicide aboard Villa de Madrid off Valparaíso, shooting himself in his cabin on 28 November 1865 while lying on his bed wearing his dress uniform. In his testament, he requested not to be buried in Chilean waters; accordingly, he was buried on the high seas.Farcau, p. 17.
Arriving from Callao, Peru, the armoured frigate rendezvoused with Villa de Madrid and Berenguela at Caldera, Chile, on 12 December 1865. Learning of Pareja's death, Numancia′s commanding officer, Contralmirante (Counter admiral) Casto Méndez Núñez, took charge of the Pacific Squadron that day and transferred to Villa de Madrid. After meeting with the commanding officers of the squadron's ships, Méndez Núñez departed aboard Villa de Madrid bound for Coquimbo, Chile, where he rendezvoused with Reina Blanca. The two ships got underway on 18 December for Valparaíso, where the screw frigate Resolución and the screw corvette joined them on 19 December 1865, thus concentrating the squadron there. A few days later, Méndez Núñez limited the blockade to Valparaíso and Caldera. After bringing aboard supplies from a newly arrived Spanish frigate, Méndez Núñez's squadron began operations to find and recapture Virgen de Covadonga. The squadron first searched the Juan Fernández Islands and then Puerto Inglés on Chiloé Island in the Chiloé Archipelago off Chile without finding her.
Peru and Ecuador joined the war on Chile's side in January 1866. In February 1866, Méndez Núñez sent Villa de Madrid, still under Sánchez's command, and Reina Blanca south to destroy the combined Chilean-Peruvian squadron. To save coal, the two frigates stopped at the Juan Fernández Islands to obtain supplies and information before beginning their search. The Spanish frigates found the allied squadron, composed of the Peruvian Navy frigate and corvettes América and Unión and the Chilean Navy schooner Covadonga, anchored and immobilized in an inlet on the Chilean coast in the Chiloé Archipelago at Abtao Island on 7 February 1866. In the resulting Battle of Abtao, the Spanish ships were reluctant to close with the allied squadron because of a fear of running aground in shallow water. Apurímac opened fire at 16:15, and an indecisive exchange of long-range gunfire ensued over the course of about 90 minutes in which the ships fired about 1,700 rounds and Covadonga scored several hits on Reina Blanca. The Spanish frigates displayed good marksmanship but had little success and ultimately withdrew as darkness fell to avoid wasting ammunition. During the engagement, Villa de Madrid was hit seven times in her hull and four times in her masts and rigging, suffering four men wounded and three others accidentally injured; two of her guns burst at their muzzles, although this did not result in any additional damage or casualties. Reina Blanca was hit eight times in her hull and eight in her masts and rigging, suffering two men wounded.
Bolivia joined the war against Spain on 22 March 1866, closing all the Pacific ports of South America south of Colombia to Spanish ships. Under orders to take punitive action against South American ports, Méndez Núñez selected undefended Valparaíso as his targettarget,Scheina, page not specified. although he found the idea of attacking an undefended port repugnant. On the morning of 31 March 1866 his squadron arrived at Valparaíso. Numancia fired two shots at 08:00 to signal the rest of the squadron to open fire, then withdrew offshore and took no further part in the bombardment, instead standing by to intervene if foreign warships, which had gathered near the harbor entrance, tried to interfere. Facing no opposition, Villa de Madrid, Reina Blanca, Resolución, and Vencedora began a three-hour bombardment of Valparaíso at 09:00 while Berenguela and the sidewheel paddle steamer Paquete de Maule stood by offshore to guard against any attempt at escape by Chilean merchant ships. By the time it ended at 12:00, the bombardment had killed two people, injured 10, and sunk 33 merchant ships in the harbor, destroying Chile's merchant fleet. It inflicted US$10 million (about US$224 million in 2011) in damage.
Méndez Núñez chose the heavily defended port of Callao, Peru, for his next attack. He divided the squadron into two divisions, the first made up of Berenguela, Numancia, Reina Blanca, Vencedora, and three auxiliary steamers and the second of Villa de Madrid, Resolución, the screw frigate , Paquete de Maule, and three transport frigates and, after burning prize ships his squadron had captured, set off on 14 April 1866 for San Lorenzo Island off Callao, the second division getting underway at 09:00 and the first division at 16:00. The first division made the voyage under steam and arrived at San Lorenzo Island on 25 April, while the second division, making the journey under sail and delayed by the low speed of one of the transport frigates, arrived on 27 April 1866. Several days of negotiations began on 26 April, during which Méndez Núñez granted neutral countries a four-day delay in his attack to give them time to salvage their interests in Callao. The Spanish ships used the delay to prepare for the attack: The frigates all lowered their topmasts and main yards and altered their rigging to reduce the likelihood of damage to their masts, set up on-board field hospitals, and painted over the white stripes on their hulls with black paint to reduce the ships' visibility and give Peruvian gunners less of an aiming point.
On the morning of 2 May 1866 the Spanish ships entered Callao Bay, beginning the Battle of Callao, the largest battle of the Chincha Islands War. Vencedora and the auxiliary ships stood off near San Lorenzo Island while the other six Spanish ships attacked Callao, with Numancia, Almansa, and Resolución assigned to bombard the northern part of the harbor while Villa de Madrid, Berenguela, and Reina Blanca shelled the southern part. Numancia fired the first shot at 11:55. During the ensuing battle, Villa de Madrid was hit five times, including a hit by a projectile that according to one source killed 14 men and wounded 13 and according to another inflicted a total of 35 casualties. The projectile destroyed her boilers and disabled her. Vencedora towed her out of danger, but Villa de Madrid fired over 200 rounds at the Peruvian fortifications during the maneuver.de Novo y Colson , p. 453.Rodríguez González, p. 95. In command of a battery of guns on Villa de Madrid′s main deck, Teniente de navío (Ship-of-the-line lieutenant) Manuel de la Cámara, a future almirante (admiral), played an active and conspicuous role in the battle, the guns under his command firing until they ran out of ammunition.Real Academia de la Historia: Manuel de la Cámara y Livermoore (in Spanish) Retrieved 8 May 2020 Running low on ammunition, the Spanish squadron ceased fire entirely at 16:40 as dusk fell and fog began to form in the harbor; by then all but three guns of the harbor defenses had been silenced. The most significant combat action of Villa de Madrid′s career, the Battle of Callao coincidentally took place on the 58th anniversary of the Madrid uprising for which she was named.