USS Constellation (1854)

USS Constellation

History
United States
Laid down:	25 June 1853
Launched:	26 August 1854
Commissioned:	28 July 1855 – 1933
Recommissioned:	1940
Decommissioned:	4 February 1955
Struck:	15 August 1955
Status:	Museum ship
General characteristics
Type:	Sloop-of-war/Corvette
Displacement:	1,400 long tons (1,400 t)
Length:	181 ft (55 m) (waterline) 199 ft (61 m) (overall)
Beam:	41 ft (12 m) (waterline) 43 ft (13 m) extreme
Draft:	21 ft (6.4 m)
Propulsion:	Sail
Complement:	20 officers, 220 sailors, 45 marines
Armament:	16 × 8 in (200 mm) chambered shell guns 4 × 32-pounder (15 kg) long guns 1 × 20-pounder (9 kg) Parrott rifle 1 × 30-pounder (14 kg) Parrott rifle 3 × 12-pounder (5 kg) bronze boat howitzers
USS Constellation (Frigate)
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Location	Baltimore, Maryland
Coordinates	39°17′07.9″N 76°36′40.3″W / 39.285528°N 76.611194°W / 39.285528; -76.611194Coordinates: 39°17′07.9″N 76°36′40.3″W / 39.285528°N 76.611194°W / 39.285528; -76.611194
Built	1854
NRHP Reference #	66000918
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	15 October 1966
Designated NHL	23 May 1963

USS Constellation is a sloop-of-war/corvette, the last sail-only warship designed and built by the United States Navy. She was built in 1854, using materials salvaged from the frigate USS Constellation, which had been disassembled the year before. Despite being a single-gundeck "sloop," she is actually larger than her original frigate build, and more powerfully armed with fewer but much more potent shell-firing guns.

The sloop was launched on 26 August 1854 and commissioned on 28 July 1855 with Captain Charles H. Bell in command. She remained in service for close to a century before finally being retired in 1954. She is now preserved as a museum ship in Baltimore, Maryland, and is a National Historic Landmark.

From 1855 to 1858, Constellation performed largely diplomatic duties as part of the U.S. Mediterranean Squadron.

She was flagship of the Africa Squadron from 1859 to 1861. In this period, she took part in African Slave Trade Patrol operations to disrupt the Atlantic slave trade. The ship interdicted three slave ships and released the imprisoned Africans:

Constellation spent much of the war as a deterrent to Confederate cruisers and commerce raiders in the Mediterranean Sea.

After the Civil War, Constellation saw various duties such as carrying exhibits to the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris and famine relief stores in the 1879 Irish famine. She also spent a number of years as a receiving ship (floating naval barracks).

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Wikipedia