One of the Navy's most historic relics, USS CONSTITUTION,
berthed at Boston Naval Shipyard across the harbor from her birthplace,
the old location of Hartt's Shipyard, stands as a fitting memorial to the
glory of the Navy and seamen of long ago.
In 1794, following the outbreak of war between
France and Great Britain and five years after the adoption of the Constitution
and the beginning of our government, Congress passed an act authorizing
the building, or purchase of six war vessels.
Old Ironsides
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1830
Ay, tear
her tattered ensign down!
Long has
it waved on high,
And many
an eye has danced to see
That banner
in the sky;
Beneath
it rung the battle shout
And burst
the cannon's roar;
The meteor
of the ocean air
Shall
sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck,
once red with heroes' blood,
Where
knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds
were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves
were white below,
No more
shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know
the conquered knee; --
The harpies
of the shore shall pluck
The eagle
of the sea!
Oh better
that her shattered hulk
Should
sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders
shook the mighty deep,
And there
should be her grave;
Nail to
the mast her holy flag,
Set every
threadbare sail,
And give
her to the god of storms,
The lightning
and the gale!
One of the first three ships built under this
act was the CONSTITUTION, named for the great bulwark of our government.
October 21st, she will observe her 158th Anniversary [1955] of Naval service.
Historians attribute the extreme longevity
of the titan of the old United States frigate fleet to two intangible things,
the poetic skill of Oliver Wendell Holmes and the sentimental will of the
American public. The dramatic appeal of the poem stuck in the
public imagination. Public insistence was instrumental in the decision
to retain the CONSTITUTION in service and public insistence since has renewed
the frigate's lease on life on more than one occasion.
Born during the sea war with Napoleon's French
fleet, the CONSTITUTION went immediately into action. Her unrivaled exploits
soon established her as young America's "fightingest" ship, as she defeated
in turn the best the French and British navies had to offer, and repulsed
the piratical forays of the bounty seeking vessels of the African Barbary
States.
In 1830, after 32 years of fighting, the battle-scarred
frigate was considered too old and battered to be of further use, and the
order was issued to destroy her. That order aroused the ire and stimulated
the pen of a 2l year old Harvard University graduate who was later to win
fame as a poet, essayist, novelist and physician. The result was his first
important poem, which he titled "Old Ironsides".
The CONSTITUTION is the second oldest ship
in the Navy, the USS CONSTELLATION being her senior by a little more than
a month. *She
has circumnavigated the globe by sailing, she has had piped aboard her
quarterdeck the dignitaries of the world, and during her heyday, was never
long out of my major sea struggle. Using her then formidable battery of
24- and 12-pounders, she captured 24 enemy vessels during the Tripolitan
and the War of 1812, burning and scuttling seven British craft during the
latter conflict.
The high point in her early fighting days came
with the siege of Tripoli. On four occasions in August, 1804, she led bombardments
on towns, harbors and batteries of the Moorish coast, and during the blockade
captured three enemy gunboats and two Greek ships attempting to breach
the Navy's lines. Peace with the Barbary state was made on her decks June
2, 1805, when the Bey of Tripoli came aboard to sign the pact ending hostilities.
In the War of 1812 the already renowned CONSTITUTION
set sail to meet and return the fire of the imposing array of British Royal
Navy ships that then ruled the sea.
In June that year the declaration of war had
been read onboard the frigate at Washington, D.C., and for a month she
remained on the defensive. In July, however, she out maneuvered a British
squadron of five ships off New York, and in August her prowess once again
was asserted. She captured and burned the British brigs ADEONA and LADY
WARREN in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, recaptured the United States brig ADELINE,
an enemy prize, and ordered her into Boston, and three days later she captured
the GUERRIERE of 90 guns and 280 men.
When Lieutenant George C. Read boarded the
GUERRIERE after the battle he found the CONSTITUTION'S broadsides had wrecked
the British man-of-war. Her masts and spars were hanging over the side,
her guns were sheared off the mountings, her decks were littered with dead,
and the ship was sinking. Captain Isaac Hull ordered her burned.
It was in this action that the CONSTITUTION
earned the later established nickname of "Old Ironsides". A seaman saw
a GUERRIERE shot hit the ship's wooden side and fall into the sea, and
shouted, "Hurrah, her sides are made of iron!"
Congress rewarded the officers and men of the
CONSTITUTION with $50,000 in prize money for their victory over the GUERRIERE.
Silver medals were struck and presented to the men, and the London Times
said, "He must be a weak politician who does not see how important the
first triumph is in giving a tone and character to the war."
Later that year, "Old Ironsides" captured and
burned the British warship JAVA off San Salvador. Her next victims were
the storeladen LOVELY ANN, the schooner PHOENIX, which was sunk, the man-of-war
PICTOU and the brig CATHARINE, captured and sunk off the coast of Guiana.
In April 1819, the CONSTITUTION was chased
into Marblehead, Massachusetts, by the British frigates JUNON and TENEDOS.
She escaped into open water. A week later she had captured a British merchant
ship, LORD NELSON, and through a misunderstanding of orders, scuttled her
after cargo had been removed. The SUSANNAH, with cargo worth $73,000, was
captured by the CONSTITUTION in February, 1815, and four days later she
ran down the British warships CYANE and LEYANT off Madeira, raked them
with gunfire, and captured them. Throughout and following this period of
intense activity, the CONSTITUTION was commanded by such now famous officers
as Stephen Decatur, Edward Preble, John Rodgers, Jacob Jones, Thomas MacDonough,
William Bainbridge and George Dewey.
It was after her great fighting days, when
her victories in the War of 1812 had been dimmed by time, that the decision
was made to scrap the famous warship. Holmes' poem stayed her execution
when the American public read his inspired lines. Thus saved from the "harpies
of the shore," the CONSTITUTION was placed in drydock at Boston in June,
1833.
Her next major cruise, from 1835 to 1838, took
her to various Mediterranean ports as the flagship of Commodore Jesse D.
Elliott, and then in 1844, the frigate left New York on a global excursion
which included visits to numerous ports as a good will agent of the United
States. She sailed 52,279 miles on this voyage.
"Old Ironsides" completed her final action
as a fighting unit of the Navy in 1853, when she intercepted and captured
a number of ships engaged in illicit slave trade along the African coast.
When she returned to Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
in 1855, sailing ships had become completely outmoded. During and following
the Civil War, she was used for training midshipmen at Annapolis, Maryland,
and she made her last cruise to a foreign shore when she sailed with the
American exhibit for the Paris Exposition in 1878.
After resuming her role as a training ship
upon her return to the United States, the venerable frigate took a holiday
in October, 1897. In tow of a tug, she reentered Boston, her birthplace,
where newer vessels of the fleet waited to help her celebrate her 100th
anniversary. Following a testimonial program, she was placed "in ordinary"
at Boston.
From 1909 to 1925, "Old Ironsides " was anchored
in the Boston Navy Yard and was used as a Naval museum. There, the public
came to view the sturdy product of the Navy's first architect, Joshua Humphreys.
Humphreys had designed the frigate for a complement of 475 officers, seamen
and marines. The 204-foot, 2,200-ton ship was built under his supervision
at an initial cost of $302,718.84.
Several Boston firms had helped outfit the
CONSTITUTION. Paul Revere furnished the copper spikes and bolts, Edmund
Thayer built the gun carriages at South End, the anchors were forged at
Hanover, and her sails were fashioned in the old Granary building at the
corner of Park and Tremont streets. In addition, the Shillings Brothers
of Boston were employed to work on carvings for the figure head and other
ornaments of the ship. In compliance with Humphreys' specifications, the
beams of the decks had been constructed of Carolina pine at Hartt's shipyard
in Boston, and the lower futtocks and knees were made of live oak from
islands off the coast of Georgia.
After 16 years of comparative inactivity as
a "museum", Congress in 1925 authorized restoration of the CONSTITUTION,
and a campaign was launched to raise the necessary money by public donations.
School children contributed pennies to help support the campaign. In July,
1931, the historic frigate was recommissioned at Boston to the accompaniment
of a 21-gun salute. The next day she sailed to visit 90 ports on the Atlantic,
Pacific, and Gulf coasts. During this tour, 4,614,762 persons came aboard
to inspect the vessel their sentiment and contributions had saved.
She returned to Boston in 1934 and was moored
at a pier accessible to visitors, "in service, not commissioned." Her full
commission was restored in August, 1940, and she has since become the flag
ship for commandants of the First Naval District. In the meantime, she
is being kept under close observation to detect first signs of deterioration
in her hull timbers, rigging and appurtenances. The gangplank of "Old Ironsides"
is still down for visitors, however.
The initial cost of "Old Ironsides" was $302,718;
her original tonnage was 1,576, with a displacement of 2,200 tons, with
a measurement of 204-feet length and 43-1/2 foot beam. In the matter of
armament, the CONSTITUTION'S main battery of 24-pounders had maximum range
of approximately 1,000 yards, or slightly more than half a mile. The Frigate's
guns were rated by the shot they could throw, that is, a 24-pounder threw
a solid iron ball that weighed 24 pounds. 475 officers and men were carried
aboard the CONSTITUTION.
At the time this article was prepared it was
the prevailing belief that the USS Constellation, which is currently in
Baltimore, Maryland, was the original ship built in Baltimore and launched
on 7 September 1797. In reality she was in such sad shape in May
of 1853 she was dismantled as she was beyond repair. At the same time the
shipyard at Gosport, Virgina started to gather the materials to build a
new sloop-of-war bearing the name of U.S. S. Constellation. This
was the last all sail man-of-war built for the U.S. Navy. For more information
of the U.S.S. Constellation please visit their web site at www.constellation.org.
Take a guided tour of Old
Ironsides with Ed Reese. Just click on his picture below &
you are "underway".
.
Ed Reese 1965
NAVETSUSA Founder, Edward C. Reese, NCCS, USN Ret,
who (LEFT)
served aboard the USS Constitution (1965) his first tour. (RIGHT) Reese
returning to "Old Ironsides" (1988) for a "Civilian Tour"
