USS Constitution to mark anniversary with rare voyage

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Boston Globe: Peter DeMarco

August 17, 2012

 

 

 

For just the second time in 131 years the USS Constitution will sail under its own power Sunday — the anniversary of its most famous battle — on a voyage that is expected to be as brief as it is momentous.

 

The world’s oldest commissioned warship afloat, which sailed in spectacular fashion to Marblehead for its 200th birthday in 1997, will be towed to a point almost midway between Castle Island and Deer Island around 11:30 a.m., Navy officials said. Some 200 sailors will unfurl four sails, including its basketball-court sized main sail, before casting its tugboat tethers aside.

 

For about 10 minutes the Constitution will sail freely toward open water, just as she did off the coast of Nova Scotia on Aug. 19, 1812. That was the day Old Ironsides earned its famous nickname by withstanding an attack from the British frigate HMS Guerriere in one of the first major American naval victories of the War of 1812.

 

As cannonballs literally bounced off the Constitution’s triple-layered hull, a seaman inside was said to have exclaimed, “Huzza! Her sides are made of iron!” The name stuck instantly.

 

 

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USS Constitution captures HMS Guerriere, 19 August 1812

 

 

The U.S. Frigate Constitution left Boston, Massachusetts, on 2 August 1812, bound for a raiding cruise off Nova Scotia, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland. Her Commanding Officer, Isaac Hull, was eager to find and fight one of the several Royal Navy frigates then active off North America, and on 18 August an American privateer informed him that one might be found further south. The next afternoon, some 400 miles southeast of the British base at Halifax, a sail was sighted that turned out to be HMS Guerriere, one of the frigates that had fruitlessly pursued Constitution off New York a month earlier.

 

Guerriere's Captain, James R. Dacres, was also spoiling for a fight. Despite his ship's disadvantages in number and size of guns, and number of crewmen, the long British tradition of victory in ship-to-ship combat against European enemies provided reasonable grounds for Dacres' aggressive optimism. As Constitution approached on this windy, cloudy day, Guerriere began firing alternating broadsides that produced few hits and little damage. Constitution's return fire, limited to a few guns mounted forward, was also ineffective, but this changed markedly as the two ships drew alongside at about six in the evening of 19 August 1812.

 

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SUPER FRIGATES - AMERICA'S HIGH TECH WEAPONS OF THE 1790's

Steve McQuillan

 

The year is 1812 and the United States is at war. Like the war of our recent past, the subject of conversation around the world was American military technology. The focus of attention at that time, however, was on America's forty-four gun "super" frigates. During the first eight months of 1812 these American 44 gun frigates had, in battles fought on the high seas with frigates of the English navy, overcome those English frigates in each of the three ship to ship actions fought between them. To understand the scope of this accomplishment and why it caught even the attention of the Emperor Bonaparte, a brief understanding of naval power in 1812 is required.

 

The British navy in 1812 was made up of 191 ships of the line, 245 frigates of 50 guns or more and numerous other smaller warships giving it over 860 ships altogether. (Another 56 ships were in the process of construction including three 120 gun ships of the line). The English navy time and again during the preceding twenty years had humbled the navies of France, Spain, Denmark, Turkey, Algeria, Russia and Holland. In the twenty years preceding 1812 the ships of his majesty's navy had fought in over 200 single ship to ship engagements and lost in but five. The last time an English ship had lost a ship to ship action had been seven years earlier when in 1805 the French Milan had bested the HMS Cleopatra. One consequence of this seemingly unending line of victories was that by 1812 over 170 ships on the English roll were ships captured during combat. (This total included 96 French, 39 Danish and 18 Spanish ships) English naval victories had come to be expected by captains and sailors of not only of the Brtish navy but those of the ships which they fought. That attitude was rudely shaken in 1812 when the HMS Guerre (38) was destroyed by the USS Constitution (44), the HMS Macedon (49) captured by the USS United States (44) and the HMS Java (44) taken by the USS Constitution.

 

The navy of the United States in 1812 consisted of some 50 ships. A congressional committee in early 1812 had determined that a fleet of 12 ships of the line and 20 frigates would be large enough to protect the U.S. because of how thinly spread the English fleet was stretched blockading France. Ships of the line were reserved for the major military and economic powers, however, and something Congress decided the United States could not afford. *see note1

 

The largest ships in the U.S. fleet in 1812 were the 44 gun frigates, the Constitution, United States and President. Launched between 1798 and 1800 these three ships were built principally to protect U.S. commerce from the Barbary pirates. Because of the threat presented by the Barbary states, the United States' Congress voted in 1794 to build four 44 gun and two 38 gun frigates. (That number was decided on the fact that the Portuguese had adequately blockaded the Barbary states with three ships of the line)

Those six ships were:

 

United States

 

Constitution

 

President

 

Constellation

 

Congress

 

Chesapeake

 

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[clearvision]

Thanks, Interesting read.