After extensive rebuilding in the late 1920s, Constitution toured the coasts of the United States. Here at New York's West 79th Street Pier on 6 September, 193 1, she Lies just across the slip from the Gulf Coast 5-masted barkentine C ity of Beaumont, renamed Buccaneer
could not hope to match thi s. The ir population of some 13 million was stretched to meet the demands of a world war, whereas the United States could draw on an untroubled population base of 7 million. Thi s advantage was inte lligentl y ex ploited to sign on big crews aboard the ships, made up of seamen of high quality. Equall y important , her des ign and construction upset the order of things. The great fri gate was a handsome ship , as many people testified and early pai ntings show , but she d idn' t look much different from any ordinary fr igate (except in scale), and she and her sistershi ps United States and President could be and sometimes were mistake n fo r Royal Navy ships. But the differences were there , and cumulatively they were aweso me . First, there was her sheer size-a thing not immediately apparent , perhaps, when you saw her against open sea and sky. But she was , for a fri gate, " huge ." T he word is that of the great naval architectural historian Howard I. Chapelle . Rated at 44 guns (she carried more than 50 in practice) she was a heavy fri gate, meant not onl y to scout and subdue merchantmen but to catch and fi ght other frigates. The British , after some foo ling around with 50-gun two-decked intermediate ships (intermediate between crui ser or frigate and battleship) had begun to build big single-deck fri gates of Constitution' s ty pe by the time the American ship was launched . But the bi g new 44s laid down fo r the Royal Navy in 1797 were full y 20 feet shorter than Constitution' s 175-foot waterline length , and they were two to three fee t narrower in the beam . S ize gave the ship the ability to carry a heavy burden in guns and protection against hostile gunfire , in a fas t and seaworthy hull . The guns she carried were of battleship weight. On her main deck (or gundeck) she had thirty long guns throw ing 24-pound shot at high velocity. No fr igate in the Royal Navy carried any long guns bi gger than 18-pounders. On her quarterdeck and fo recastle Constitution carried twenty to twenty-two 32pound carronades- short guns th row ing a heavy payload wi th smashing effect at short ranges. A couple of 24-pound chase guns on the fo recastle head rounded out the ship ' s formida ble complement of shi p-killing weaponry. 12
The carronades were an innovation . The 32-pound carronade was onl y 4 feet long, and we ighed just over a ton . A propellant charge of 2. 5lb gave its heavy shot an effective range of 400 yards, or just under a quarter mile . The long 24s measured 9 feet and we ighed nearly three tons. The ir 6lb charge threw the ir shot to an effective range of 1200 yards, well over half a mile. But range was not the battle-deciding thing about the big 24-pounder. Their deadl y asset was the velocity of their shot at close range . These three-ton iron monsters simply blew the light-built English fri gates away . Their shot penetrated the hull , splintering everything in its path and scything down rows of un fo rtunate seamen. (Stephen Decatur, in Constitution' s sistership , United States, recorded his horror at the devastation hi s broadsides had wrought on the decks of the Macedonian when he went aboard her after her surrender. And that action was decided at fairly long range.) The Briti sh 18-pounders, meantime, could not do any decisive damage to Constitution's hull. Her men were not wrong to call her " Old Ironsides" after seeing shot from Guerriere bounce off her. Her closely spaced frames formed an almost solid hedge behind stout oak planking, backed up with heavy ceiling on the inside, to make up , at its maximum in the wales at the waterline, an oaken cuirass nearl y two feet thick . The fac t is that Constitution , the tall , graceful fri gate , had been built in line-of-battle ship construction. Since she al so carried a sizable battery of battleship-weight guns , this meant that she had the potenti al to blast any normal frigate she came across to bits, with near impunity . Add to this deadly potential the verve of her captains and the high level of accuracy drilled into her gun crews- which consistently functioned at levels fa r superior to any but a few exceptional British frigates-and her total superiority to the ships she fou ght comes into focus . Ultimately, the creation of a fleet of super frigates owes itself to President George Washington's old comrade-in-arms, General Henry Knox, whom he named Secretary of War under the new Constitution . In the spirit of safeguarding American shipping , General Knox submitted a bill to Congress authori zing the construction of. six fri gates, four heavies of 44 guns, and two 36s. Knox had been advi sed in thi s by John Wharton and Wharton 's cou sin Joshua Humphreys, a forty-three-yearold Phil ade lphia shipbuilder who had a vi sion of a super-frigate which would put battleship strength afloat in big cruiser hulls . The idea was not unheard of. There was the precedent of the razees in the French and Eng li sh navies. These were wornout ships-of-th e-line whi ch could no longer support the weight of, say, a third-rate battleship 's two decks bearing a battery of 74 guns. The ship simpl y had her upper deck cut off, becoming a razee (shaven) fri gate of perhaps 40 guns while retaining her heavy battleship scantlings and lower gundeck armament . Such ships were generally dull sailers (though li velier than they had been); but they could deal out and stand up to a ma rt of puni shment. They were unlikely to catch enemy fr igates , but they were we ll-suited to defend a convoy against fri gates or other raiders who could not match their weight. Humphreys ' ideas seem to have been clear from the beginning: a big ship , 150ft on the keel (or 175ft on the waterline) ; thirty 24-pounders on the gundeck , and a score or so of 12pounders on poop and quarterdeck, which were connected by gangways bearing no armament , so that you had a flu sh-decked ship bearing her main battery on one continuous gundeck . These were the specs of the 44s authori zed by Congress in 1794. But thi s was n' t all . The ships would be built of the best materials. That meant tough live oak (Quercus virginiana) , an evergreen very res istant to rot and very tough to penetrate . SEA HISTORY , SUMMER 1987