"Published by Arcadia Publishing, an imprint of Tempus Publishing, Inc."-- t.p. verso.

Built in Baltimore in 1797 under orders from President George Washington, USS Constellation is one of America's first warships, and according to this new study, remains the nation's oldest surviving warship. With the book's publication, the author believes he has put to rest a decades-old controversy among naval historians, the U.S. Navy, local governments, and various historic ship foundations. He argues that though greatly modified since built by David Stodder, the ship now berthed in Baltimore's Inner Harbor is indeed the original Constellation. Tracing her history from frigate to sloop of war, Footner examines Constellation's exciting operational history and four rebuilds, including her last in 1853, when John Lenthall, the Navy's chief constructor, redesigned her extensively.

Myers relates the illustrious history of our nation's last all-sail warship. He describes her original construction and launch in 1797 and early victories against the French frigate Insurgente and Barbary Coast pirates. He then details the mid-18th-century "repair" that transformed the ship into the "second" Constellation, a vessel that roamed the Atlantic to interdict the slave trade, saw Civil War action, and was finally used for training officers. The author also explains how the Constellation was operated and how its sailors were trained, and sums up the various rebuilding efforts that culminated in restoring her to her 1854 condition and her 1999 return to Baltimore Harbor. He includes many lengthy primary-source quotes, such as an account of the Constellation's 1860 encounter with a slave vessel and the specific instructions for sailors who handled gunpowder. There are numerous period illustrations and photos of the vessel and those who served on her as well as an extensive bibliography with primary and secondary sources and Web sites.

This seaman’s journal recounts a twenty-month voyage from Boston to the African coast to intercept slave-trading vessels as America approach the Civil War. Today the twenty-gun sloop USS Constellation is a floating museum in Baltimore Harbor; in 1859 it was an emblem of the global power of the American sailing navy. William E. Leonard served aboard the Constellation during a crucial and eventful period, chronicling it all in this remarkable journal. Sailing from Boston, the Constellation, flagship of the US African Squadron, was charged with the interception and capture of slave-trading vessels illegally en route from Africa to the Americas. During the Constellation’s deployment, the squadron captured a record number of these ships, liberating their human cargo and holding the captains and crews for criminal prosecution. At the same time, tensions at home and in the squadron increased as the American Civil War approached and erupted in April 1861. Leonard recorded not only historic events but also fascinating details about his daily life as one of the nearly four-hundred-member crew. He saw himself as not just a diarist, but a reporter, making special efforts to seek out and record information about individual crewmen, shipboard practices, recreation and daily routine—from deck swabbing and standing watch to courts martial and dramatic performances by the Constellation Dramatic Society.