Constellation vs. L'Insurgente The USS Constellation was one of the original six frigates built fo r the new US Navy. Built in 1797 in Baltimore, Constellation was a 38-gun frigate, manned by abo ut 340 men . During the Quasi-War with France in 1799, under Captain Thomas Truxton, Constellation defeated the French frigate 36gun L1nsurgente. The Constellation was broken up in the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1853, one year before a new frigate of the same name was built. This second Constellation sti II exists as a restored museum ship in Baltimore and is open to the public.
CSS Shenandoah The Shenandoah was a British-built screw steam cruiser secretly purchased by the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. She was converted to an armed raider in October 1864 and set our to prey upon US-flag merchant ships. During the war she traveled the globe, sinking or capturing 38 Union merchant ships, including many of the North's largely unarmed whaling ships in the frigid waters of the Bering Sea in June 1865. Shenandoah's captai n, James Waddell, had heard rumors of the end of the war, but he chose to continue his depredations until he could be sure . About ten weeks after General Lee's surrender, he met a British ship out from San Francisco that carried n ewspapers co nfirming the end of the war. CSS Shenandoah was the only Confederate ship to have circled the globe and has the distinction of firing the laseshots of the Civil War (tchey were fired after the >War's official end). 30
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