Controversy has tracked the noble ship USS Constellation since the day President George Washington announced that one of the nation’s first six frigates would be built in Maryland. Washington’s detractors ignored the fact that the Continental Congress had the frigate Virginia built in Fells Point, Baltimore’s original harbor district, as his critics, most from north of Chesapeake Bay, voiced the warning that skilled mechanics for such a grand project could not be found in Tidewater, though the region in 1794 built the world’s finest schooners and brigantines.
Originally, Joshua Humphreys prepared drafts for six frigates with one set of plans for two of the ships, the Constellation and Congress, of approximately 1,200 tons burden. Humphreys’s draft for the other four created a new class of powerful warships. Ultimately, five of the six were built, three large ships, the Constitution, United States, and President, and the two smaller frigates named previously.
Before construction of the Constellation began at David Stodder’s shipyard on the eastern edge of Fells Point, the War Department, with Washington’s consent, appointed Captain Thomas Truxtun her future captain and sent him to Baltimore as superintendent of the project. When the Navy commissioned the five original frigates, Humphreys and Truxtun emerged as the principal players in the drama surrounding the building of the first ships drafted for the U.S. Navy and employed first in a brief undeclared war with France.
Captain Truxtun, David Stodder, and Joshua Humphreys argued their project to completion through three years of construction delays and rising costs. Following the Constellation’s launch on 7 September 1797, Truxtun voiced a series of complaints concerning the ship, several the result of changes he demanded during her construction and several that may not have been flaws at all. Unfortunately, by meddling with the Constellation's plans and with her builder during construction, Truxtun’s demands and complaints inflicted on the ship a reputation for instability, causing modifications that continued for more than a half-century.
For my book, USS Constellation—From Frigate to Sloop of War, the Constellation’s operational records, comments about her sailing qualities, her rebuilds, information from journals and ship logs never before compiled for publication, and Navy yard reports and plans relating to the ship present a reasonably complete study. My story is a portrait of a beautiful ship fighting for her place in history. It is also the story of a ship built of a different model and the recurring fight against the heavy hands of a parade of commanders, constructors, and administrators, who endeavored to make her more like a traditional gun platform. Though many American naval officers admired the Constellation, her smaller size and unique sailing qualities (her plain sister, the USS Congress, sailed in her shadow) made her the frigate that ambitious officers sought to step beyond to gain command of a frigate-44 or a battleship of the line.
When writing about naval shipyard policies and regulations, I use the expression “to rebuild” in the same sense that naval administrators, Congress, and constructors used it in the wooden ship Navy in the first half of the 19th century—a major repair, sometimes so great that the work involved redesigning and/or replacing a ship’s hull. Between 1800 and 1854 there exists a rich lode of documentation concerning the U. S. Navy’s administration of this policy, much of it previously unpublished. Included is data concerning the Constellation’s rebuilds in 1812, in 1829, and again in 1839, during which major modifications were made to her hull dimensions and shape prior to 1853. These included greater breadth, reduced tumble home, reduction in her draft, new spar plans, a round stern, and a new rudder assembly.
In the public’s mind, the U.S. Frigate Constitution is a symbol of might and power, a ship of iron sides. The smaller Constellation, with her beautiful form, placed first on the firing line, was for decades a ship to cherish. Thoughtful naval officers respected their differences.
Addressing the controversy concerning the provenance of the U.S. Frigate Constellation and the U.S. Sloop-of-War Constellation would be a far worthier undertaking if naval historians had a well-grounded understanding in the subject of the administration of the U.S. Navy in the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The fact is, naval history can be as dull in that period as the study of any military service is during long periods when guns are fired only at practice or in duels. Many of the best men left the Navy, and most of those who remained were better sailor-lawyer-politicians than hands-on commanders of ships and men.
During the 20th century, a different sort of controversy hovered over the USS Constellation. It is a strange tale, as Howard I. Chapelle, a popular naval historian and draftsman, created it single-handed. He manipulated his story to fit the existing mood of his potential opponents, as at the time, post World War II, the U.S. Navy’s disinterest and disaffection for the subject of old wooden ships presented him with a playing field hardly challenged, inside or outside the Navy. His charges, though wild, were ignored by most maritime historians, but because the city of Baltimore wanted to acquire the ship, rated a sloop-of-war in naval records after a rebuild in 1853, the issue became politicized when Chapelle went public. He insisted that the Navy destroyed the original Constellation and secretly built a new wooden sailing ship in 1853-1854 named Constellation without Congressional approval or appropriations. Why he chose to push the thesis that many 19th-century Navy ships were built illegally remains beyond comprehension.
The modern Navy establishment and its historians continue to neglect the Constellation. She remains a second- class ship that the Navy ignores in favor of one of Joshua Humphreys’s larger frigate-44s, the USS Constitution. But they should never forget the role the smaller ship played in establishing freedom of the seas for the American merchant service and that she is the only Humphreys ship to face an opponent of equal or more powerful armament. When rated a second-class frigate, commanded by Captain Truxtun, she engaged La Vengeance and fought the French frigate to a draw, an accomplishment that sent waves of reaction through the French and English navies in recognition that the small American Navy had positioned itself on the cutting edge of naval warfare, thanks to Mr. Humphreys.
The questions concerning the Constellation are important today because Maryland interests have finally saved her from burial at sea, despite Navy neglect. It is fitting that the ship’s history and provenance are fully investigated and paraded in the records of American Naval history. It is hoped the history of Constellation will, in the future, sit on shelves next to books about the great warships Bonhomme Richard, Hyder Ally, Constitution, United States, President, Hornet, Wasp, Peacock, and Enterprise. But only she and the Constitution have survived the ravages of time and priority.
I quote a paragraph from the closing pages of a recent report on the Constellation by individuals working inside the naval establishment but not connected to the Naval Historical Center:
An exhaustive search made by the team of the historical record produced no genuine evidence either in drawings or documents to link the two Constellations other than in name only. The two ships were conceived by two different naval constructors in separate centuries to different sets of naval requirements. It appears that a deliberate attempt by perhaps one person was made to link the two Constellations by forging historical records.
My book rejects that report’s conclusion and the reasoning it seeks to convey. As Chapelle devoted only a few paragraphs of his writings to the Constellation controversy he created, he is a minor figure in the reconstruction of the ship’s story. This is particularly the case as Chapelle did not comply with the rules of writing history; his public statements on the subject are not backed up by citations. On the other hand, to refute more modern nonhistorical theses about Constellation, as frigate and sloop-of-war, my book covers all the evidence that other writers say does not exist. Obviously, disinterest, agenda, and laziness are the enemies of truth, for there exists a multitude of historical documents undisturbed by any forger or for that matter by any revisionist. A forger is easy to stigmatize because he is a criminal, but are those researchers in naval history who knowingly mislead others by their omissions any less reprehensible?
In the process of preparing this book, the story of the Constellation over her 208 years is divided itself into six general categories of investigation:
1. Did John Lenthall design a new ship in 1853, or did he make only specific modifications to the Constellation’s hull? I trace the modifications made to the Constellation’s original draft that began in David Stodder’s yard and continued through four rebuilds.
2. To support the conclusion to question one, can it be proved that preexisting framing or flooring was used in the rebuild of 1853-1854 to guarantee the integrity of her rebuilt hull and her unbroken lineage?
3. In addition to reused timbers, did the Navy return to the ship other materials and equipment taken from the ship-frigate when she entered Gosport’s ordinary in 1845 after she was rebuilt and razeed?
4. Are affirmative answers to questions one, two and three supported by the flow of official documents generated by contemporary officials of the Navy Department and others in the executive branch of the government?
5. What new sailing ships did the Navy design, build, and launch after 1845? Did Congress authorize a new ship at any time to replace the U.S. Frigate Constellation?
6. Did the interaction between the executive branch (including the Navy Department) and Congress support the premise that the Navy rebuilt the Constellation in 1812, 1829, 1839 and 1853?
I provide the answers to these questions, appropriately supported by official records and other related contemporary documents. I am confident that the evidence presented is sufficient to close the case concerning the Constellation’s provenance—the ship, rated a sloop-of-war, now beautifully restored and docked once again in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.