She carried live cattle and frozen beef from the United States to England until the advent of the Spanish–American War.

After the war, she was renamed USAT Sheridan and was fitted for service in the Pacific, supporting U.S. bases in Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines.

In addition to her regular supply missions, she transported American troops to several conflicts in the Pacific, including the Philippine Insurrection, the 1911 Revolution in China, and the Siberian Intervention of World War I.

The Atlantic Transport Line commissioned four sister ships to be built by the Harland & Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

She was fitted out to transport 1,000 live cattle,[6] and could carry 1,000 tons of fresh meat in her refrigerated holds.

[3] While the Atlantic Transport Line was controlled by American shipping magnate Bernard N. Baker, its operations were run from Britain.

In August 1893, the ship transported the racehorse Ormonde from London to New York, after he was purchased for $150,000 by a California breeder.

At the time, the United States had few overseas possessions, and thus its military had limited ocean-capable sealift to support such an offensive.

When the US Army was able to begin acquiring ships after the declaration of war, fewer domestic options remained.

[10] Army Colonel Frank J. Hecker approached the Atlantic Transport Line to charter its fleet, and was refused.

He then offered to buy the vessels he sought and a deal was struck, subject to the approval of the Secretary of War Russel Alger.

In addition to Massachusetts, the Atlantic Transport Line sold Manitoba, Mohawk, Mobile, Michigan, Mississippi, and Minnewaska.

She was ordered to sail from New York for Newport News to begin embarking troops on 19 July 1898, just five days after her purchase.

[19] She arrived in Newport News on 23 July 1898[20] and began embarking troops to reinforce the American offensive on Puerto Rico.

[22] Massachusetts arrived off Ponce on 3 August 1898 and promptly went aground on the Cabeza de Muerte reef.

[26] An incipient mutiny was quelled when captain John Findley, who had done good service for the Atlantic Transport Line, proved unequal to running Massachusetts as a troopship and was put ashore in Ponce.

[35] Having taken Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, the Army had a permanent need for transport to overseas bases.

The Army Transport Service chose the best vessels acquired during the war to become a permanent sealift capability.

[39] She stopped at Gibralter for water and coal in March 1899, but due to a measles outbreak on board was held in quarantine.

[48][49][50] Sheridan had a quick shipyard visit in San Francisco to repair boiler problems,[51] and then began preparing for her next trip to Manila.

In November 1899, for instance, she acted as an assault transport, landing troops at Lingayen Gulf to cut off an insurgent retreat.

[77] Another set of notable passengers were several hundred Philippine Scouts and Manila constabulary who participated in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.

[78][79] Sheridan continued her regular Pacific crossings until September 1905 when she went to the Union Iron Works in San Francisco for an overhaul.

[89] In addition to the repairs to hull plating and framing, work was done to modernize the ship, such as the installation of a new sick bay.

[94] Sheridan had a break from her usual trans-Pacific sailings when she left San Francisco on 2 June 1912 with the 30th Infantry Regiment aboard.

The ship next called at Fort Liscum, near the present site of Valdez, Alaska, where she relieved men of the 16th with companies G and H of the 30th.

[99] The revolutionary Bolshevik government of Russia made a separate peace with the Central Powers in March 1918, ending Russian participation in World War I. Sheridan's first trip to Siberia evacuated Maria Bochkareva, who led a Russian military unit fighting the Bolsheviks, from Vladivostok on 18 April 1918.

[100][101] In July 1918, President Wilson sent U.S. troops to Siberia as part of an Allied Expeditionary Force to safeguard American interests threatened by Russia's withdrawal from the war.

[103][104] During 1919 Sheridan sailed a triangular route between San Francisco, Vladivostok, and Manila, with her usual intermediate stops in Hawaii, and Guam.

[109] Given the glut of more modern troopships built during World War I, it made little sense for the Army to maintain the thirty-year-old Sheridan.