As it turned out, it was a matter of fifteen minutes between the ship being able to sail to safety and being dashed onto the shore. The ship was, at one point, almost completely submerged. In this photo, taken soon after she was driven ashore, water is still pouring from the upper decks.
Three men received the Medal of Honor for their actions that day: LT Claud Jones, the Chief Engineer; Chief Machinist's Mate George Rud (posthumously); and Machinist Charles Willey.
If you want to read a vivid description of what happened about the ship, both in the engineering plant and above decks, I heartily recommend the book The Wreck of the Memphis by Edward Beach (the captain's son and a decorated naval officer in his own right). When he researched and wrote the book, there were a number of survivors still around to interview.
Memphis, which spent most of her life as the USS Tennessee, was a fast, well-armored and well-armed cruiser in the day when all ships were driven by large reciprocating engines. The Navy considered modernizing her three sister ships in the 1920s, but the result didn't seem to be worth the cost.
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