USAT Thomas was a United States Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 transport ship, launched as the SS Persia in 1894, having been built for the Hamburg America Line

Hamburg America Line

The Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, Germany during...

's service to New York. She was bought by the Atlantic Transport Line

Atlantic Transport Line

The Atlantic Transport Line was a Baltimore, Maryland-based passenger shipping line that was folded into the International Mercantile Marine shipping trust in 1901. The line developed with railroad support as an offshoot of Bernard N. Baker's Baltimore Storage and Lighterage Company in 1881...

 in 1897 because she was "practically a sister" to other Massachusetts class of ships already in service there. She was renamed by her new owners.

Service history

Minnewaska was one of six Atlantic Transport Line ships requisitioned by the U.S. Government for service as transports during the Spanish-American War

Spanish-American War

The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...

, and purchased on 26 July 1898 for $660,000 and renamed Thomas after General George Henry Thomas

George Henry Thomas

George Henry Thomas was a career United States Army officer and a Union General during the American Civil War, one of the principal commanders in the Western Theater....

, a hero of the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 battle of Chickamauga

Battle of Chickamauga

The Battle of Chickamauga, fought September 19–20, 1863, marked the end of a Union offensive in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia called the Chickamauga Campaign...

.

Thomas could accommodate 100 officers, 1,200 men and 1,000 horses, and also had refrigerated capacity for shipping 1000 pounds (453.6 kg) of meat, particularly prized because beef was considered an essential element of the military diet.

A brief article in the Maryville Times of 28 October 1899 describes the ship and her facilities:
During the Spanish-American War, vessels going to and from the Philippines made a point of stopping and raising the American flag on Wake Island

Wake Island

Wake Island is a coral atoll having a coastline of in the North Pacific Ocean, located about two-thirds of the way from Honolulu west to Guam east. It is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior...

 before it was formally annexed by the United States in 1899. One of these, in July 1898, was the Thomas.

The Peace Corps

Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...

 tradition was arguably started by the Thomasites

Thomasites

The Thomasites is a group of about five hundred pioneer American teachers sent by the U.S. government to the Philippines in August 1901.-Foundation, purpose and etymology:...

, a group of educators who got their name from the Thomas. This ship brought the first batch of 540 American teachers and some of their family members to initiate a new era of public education in the Philippines in August 1901.

In early 1916, the Thomas broke its propeller on a voyage from San Francisco to Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

 and put into Honolulu for repairs. The floating dry dock that was available had a capacity of only 4,500 tons, while the Thomas was a 11,000 ton vessel, and 118 feet longer than the dry dock. Engineers allowed the bow to extend beyond the front of the dry dock granting them access to stern which was lifted out of the water, allowing them to replace the damaged propeller.

In October 1922 the Thomas took aboard passengers and crew of the Los Angeles Steamship Company

Los Angeles Steamship Company

The Los Angeles Steamship Company or LASSCO was a passenger and freight shipping company based in Los Angeles, California. The company, formed in 1920, initially provided fast passenger service between Los Angeles and San Francisco...

 liner SS City of Honolulu

USS Huron (ID-1408)

USS Huron was a United States Navy transport ship during World War I. She was formerly the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner SS Friedrich der Grosse built in 1896, which sailed Atlantic routes from Germany and sometimes Italy to the United States and on the post run to Australia...

, which had caught fire about 600 miles off the coast of California, and landed them at San Pedro, California.

Thomas made several trips to the Orient

Orient

The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...

 from New York via the Panama Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

, but was used mainly on the Manila run, stopping at Honolulu and Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

 on the westward trip, and Nagasaki

Nagasaki

is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...

, Japan, and Chinwangtao

Qinhuangdao

Qinhuangdao is a port city in northeastern Hebei province of North China. It is about 300 km east of Beijing, on the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea....

, China, on the return voyage. She was the last of the more than 50 transports acquired by the U.S. Government in 1898 to remain in service and was eventually sold for scrap in July 1928.