PARK BENJAMIN. —That is a good story which Mr. Morgan tells about the “Brood of the Constitution," but it has one small defect; he has mistaken the “Brood."
The Constitution came to Annapolis in 1859 to replace the Plymouth, aboard which ship the entering class of that year had been quartered, because the buildings were too small to accommodate all the midshipmen. The class of 1860, it is true, began its career on the old vessel, but was removed when it became necessary to refit her to defend the station against a threatened Confederate attack. After General Butler arrived with his. troops, she was hauled out into the bay, and on April 25, 1861, she sailed for Newport, arriving there on May 9. In that month, all of the midshipmen except the fourth class (1860 plebes) were ordered into active service. ' Those remaining lived in Fort Adams through the summer of1861, drilling occasionally on the Constitution, which was anchored off the fort, and subsequently moored at Goat Island. The entering class of 1861, after a short stay on board of her were transferred with the new third class to the Atlantic House in Newport, which had been somewhat hurriedly prepared as shore quarters.
The first class that was regularly assigned to the Constitution for the entire year was the entering class of 1862. There was not only no room for that class in the Atlantic House, but it was established policy to keep the class in a quasi-afloat condition. It was drilled at the ancient spar deck gulls of the Constitution, sent over the mastheads as soon as hammocks were up and exercised aloft in loosing and furling the mizzen topsail. Hammocks were slept in, the mess tables were set on the berth deck, and study hours were spent at the long rows of desks which lined both sides of the gun deck, in front of which the "mates " constantly walked looking out for delinquencies. A gangway connected the ship to the island, and some miserable sheds were erected there in which the recitations were held. The entering classes of '63 and '64 followed '62 under precisely the same conditions.
The youngsters who lived aboard ship had little or nothing to do during most of the year with the three classes on shore. They had their own cadet officers and drilled in archaic infantry tactics on the bleak and wind-swept Goat Island—whereon there were then no buildings except the "store," the recitation sheds, the remains of the old fort and the lighthouse. The instructors—all civilians—came over in the "Fanny," a puffy little tug of-all-work—weather permitting.
In the spring, infantry battalion drills were held in the open pasture lots near the Cliff, general quarters on board the Macedonian and exercises aloft on the Marion, and the practice cruise on these vessels (to which were added at times the yacht America, the gunboats Marblehead and Saco and the Dale), followed as usual—the June examination.
In view of the foregoing, I am somewhat at a loss to perceive why the entering class of 186o should be singled out as the "Brood of the Constitution." It was not the first class to live on board, for that was the entering class of 1859. It was not the first class to be assigned to the ship after she became a regular division of the academic quarters, so to speak, for that was the entering class of '62. The entering class of '63 and '64 were aboard of her for their entire fourth-class years; and even after we went back to Annapolis, '64 remained on her. The entering class of '65 were quartered on the Santee and is the only class which started its academic existence on that craft of gruesome memory. Then followed on the Constitution '66, '67, and finally '68--the last class to live on the famous old vessel, then in charge of Lieut. Commander George Dewey. Three years later the Constitution was taken from Annapolis—where she belongs—made a voyage to Europe, where she tried to ram the cliffs of Dover—probably through some ancient instinct of antagonism—and now is tied up in Boston, where she has no business to be at all.
Now bearing in mind that both before the Constitution left Annapolis and after she returned, there was no such segregation of her midshipmen as there was in Newport, for the whole battalion at Annapolis worked together, it seems to me that if, any group is entitled to be called her "brood " it is that which includes the entering classes of '62, '63 and '64. In fact with all due deference to Mr. Morgan, I am unable to see how '60's brief sojourn aboard, for part of a year, under peculiarly disturbed conditions warrants the admission of '60 into that "brood" at all. Was not the old ship peculiarly our " home "? We had no attachment to or for the Atlantic Hotel. Didn't we execute, "serve, vent and sponge" with ancient weapons on wooden carriages no different from those with which the ship sank the Guerriere in years no further distant then than "then" is from to-day? Didn't we gaze in deepest awe upon " Charley" Stewart when he came aboard once more to visit the old craft wherewith, he had thrashed the Cyane and Levant? And with him, Farragut and Goldsborough and Paulding, all comrades in the war of '12. And lots of other memories which I don't dare to recall here lest I be rightly charged with too much reminiscing.
No—we, the plebes of '62, '63 and '64, are the "Brood of the Constitution," for we had her all to ourselves, three miles away from the rest of the school. And '62 and '63 are perhaps even a shade better qualified then '64, for when the latter zealous young officers arrived (look at their picture in my " Shakings "), the Constitution was bedizened with the new-fangled, one-starred pennant, suggestive only of brigadier generals, while over us the huge and many starred swallowtail of the old commodores flew proudly from the main.