USS Constellation

Built at the Gosport yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1854, USS Constellation remained an important sailing ship during a Civil War navy increasingly shaped by steam power and ironclads. When the Civil War began in April 1861, it served as the flagship of the anti-slave trade African Squadron, and the following month it made one of the first Union captures by taking the slaver Triton of Charleston, South Carolina. After a brief recall to American waters, Constellation was sent to the Mediterranean, where it carried out varied missions that included protecting American commerce from Confederate raiders. During the war, the U.S. Navy played a crucial part in Union victory by blockading the Southern coastline, patrolling for commerce raiders, and enabling effective amphibious operations. Boys also served aboard naval vessels as ship's boys, carrying powder charges to guns in combat and earning the nickname powder monkeys; among them was Aspinwall Fuller, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker who enlisted in Baltimore in 1864 and served on USS New Hampshire, while Constellation carried twelve such teenagers during its Civil War cruise.

Baltimore, Maryland · United States