Talk:USS Constellation (1854)

Untitled
"After the war, Constellation saw various duties such as carrying famine relief stores to Ireland and carrying American works of art to the Paris Exposition of 1895."

- I can't find any reference to an 1895 Paris Exposition. Any fact checking for this? dml 04:13, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Politics of distinguishing the 1797 and 1854 ships
I think more mention should be made of the former U.S.F. Constellation Foundation (which had maintained the ship until the 1990s and treated it as a refitted 1797 ship) board being replaced by advocates of the it's-a-new-ship theory who renamed the foundation (dropping the "United States Frigate" initials as they did not regard the ship as the old frigate). The "conclusive proof" (which doesn't change the official contemporary Naval policy that the ship was refitted (replacing everything from the waterline to the top of the masts,yes,but officially refitted...Congress refused to fund a new ship)) was thus what those paying for the renovation wanted to hear,and research drawing attention to the ties to the old frigate would likely have been ignored.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 03:22, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree that more mention could be made of the foundation. But the issue was a political one because the original Constellation was thought to be better (true) than a civil war era last of sail ship.  It was really a case of non-historians promoting the ship to save her in any way they could.  Later, the story was easier to sell to tourists and no one wanted to acknowledge the mistakes of the past.  It is a new ship though.  Just because there was a dispute over funding and the name remained the same does not make the same ship, or even a decendant ship.  --Noitall 03:33, September 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that because modern historians regard it as a new ship doesn't mean people should disregard the contemporary Naval position that it was the same ship,even if all that was carried over was a number of sub-surface planks.Taking sides on an ambiguous issue is not NPOV.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 01:59, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
 * It wasn't the contemporary naval position. The navy always regarded it as a different ship until it was trying to get rid of it in the early 1900s. --Noitall 02:07, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * Though the "It's a different ship" folks have currently claimed the win in this debate, the facts are hardly definitive. Anyone interested in the provenance of the wooden ship Constellation should read Geoffrey Footner's book "USS Constellation: From Frigate to Sloop of War".  It is both more recent and more thorough than previous reports, including "Fouled Anchors", and comes to quite a different conclusion.  While there is no doubt that the vessel currently on display is very different in form factor to the 1797 frigate, the evidence is not conclusive that they're completely different vessels either. Senna1 22:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Not trying to pour more gas on the fire but some of the reading I've been doing lately seems to point towards ships in this era being "refitted" rather than constructing a "new" ship. Instead of asking Congress for funds to build "new" ships the Navy would ask for funds to "refit" a ship. In reality this meant that ship builders were actually laying new keels to "refit" an older version of a ship. This was noted as being done to the frigate Congress as well as Constellation. In order to keep up the "refitting" charade the ships were not struck from the vessel register and were being "refitted" during that time period. This seems to have been a very common practice in that era. --Brad (talk) 20:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the Navy didn't "ask for funds;" rather the Navy received funding for "repair and maintenance" as part of its continuing budget, which it could spend on whatever "repairs" it saw fit. But it's true that in the pre-Civil War era Congress was very, very reluctant to fund new ships. Solicitr (talk) 20:59, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * At least according to "Fouled Anchors", this seems to have been a mistaken theory by Howard Chapelle. FA comes to the conclusion that this was done quite openly albeit without fanfare; that the Navy's timber stockpiles outran the need for constructing new ships, and that a new ship could therefore be built from existing stockpiles with labor from existing personnel and relatively little additional outlay. The cost problem was one of manning and maintaining a new ship over the long term, thus the decision to substitute a new ship for the old rather than add a ship to the fleet. I should probably read the Footner book mentioned above. I'd be curious to see how he overcomes some of the problems FA raises. 192.91.172.36 (talk) 08:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Wegner thoroughly destroyed Frigate to Sloop's new conclusions. You can read the report here. Brad (talk) 04:36, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thank you! 192.91.147.34 (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2012 (UTC) (same guy as above.
 * The Wegner cite is dead, but has been archived here. Kablammo (talk) 14:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Relevant to this discussion, I cut the "Ship of Theseus" link from the head of the "Controversy" section, since that mischaracterizes what the issue of identity is all about. No one is claiming that the original frigate was so heavily reconstructed that it became a different ship: if the present sloop were known for certain to be a reconstruction of the frigate then there would be no issue. The "two ships" theory is that the sloop was an entirely new ship, built from all new material, and re-using no significant material from the frigate if any at all. 192.91.172.36 (talk) 08:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The link to Fouled Anchors is dead. I'm wondering about changing the reference to the presentation here from Brad's comment above, which gives the main points of the report. AkaSylvia (talk) 12:55, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The link changed locations so I put in the new one. I also archived the report in case it does fall offline in the future. Lastly, I have a PDF copy of the report in my collection. Brad (talk) 20:57, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Rig
I recently watched a PBS "documentary" on Constellation and her 1859-1861 service with the US African Squadron. The show consistently showed her rigged as a barque while her current rig, and that shown in all the pictures of her I could find, is that of a full-rigged ship. Howard Chapelle in "A History of the American Sailing Navy states "No bark was employed in the sailing Navy in America" with one exception (not Constellation. I suspect the discrepancy is due to an error in the documentary but I thought I would bring it up here in case anyone had any evidence that Constellation was barque-rigged during her African service. OldVato (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Corvette
A sloop of war refers to ships generally smaller than the USS Constellation, which is a ship nearly the size of a frigate, and a ship pierced for 22-24 guns is more accurately a corvette. The term should be replaced on the page.MKleid (talk) 07:10, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * All sources I have seen refer to this ship as a sloop-of-war. If you have sources that say specifically otherwise, please cite them. 192.91.171.36 (talk) 00:45, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

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Paris Exposition 1878
I believe the mention of going to the Paris Exposition is exclusive of DANFS. Confusing the names Constitution and Constellation happens a lot; even to me. In the extensive research I did for Constitution, there is no mention of Constellation escorting Constitution to Paris. Constitution most certainly made the trip but DANFS is the only source that says Constellation went there. I believe DANFS is mistaken. Hope this makes sense. Brad (talk) 20:43, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Undiscussed move to USS Constellation (1855)
Why was this done with no discussion? I tried to revert but cannot. Can an administrator fix this? GenQuest "Talk to Me" 10:14, 4 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Done. Parsecboy (talk) 11:38, 4 April 2019 (UTC)