USS Constellation (1797)

USS Constellation by John W. Schmidt
History
United States
Name	USS Constellation
Namesake	The 15 stars in the contemporary United States national flag[2]
Ordered	27 March 1794[2]
Builder	David Stodder[1]
Cost	$314,212
Launched	7 September 1797[1]
Homeport	Baltimore Maryland USA
Nickname(s)	"Yankee Racehorse"
Fate	Broken up, 1853[2]
General characteristics
Class and type	38-Gun frigate[2]
Displacement	1,265 tons[2]
Length	164 ft (50 m) between perpendiculars[1]
Beam	41 ft (12 m)[1]
Depth of hold	13.5 ft (4.1 m)[1]
Decks	Orlop, Berth, Gun, Spar
Propulsion	Sail (three masts, ship rig)
Complement	340 officers and enlisted[1]
Armament	28 × 18-pounder long guns 20 × 32-pounder carronades

USS Constellation was a nominally rated 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted frigate of the United States Navy.

The ship was built under the direction of David Stodder at The Joseph and Samuel Sterett shipyard on Harris Creek in Baltimore's Fell's Point maritime community, and was launched on 7 September 1797. Constellation was one of the original six frigates whose construction the Naval Act of 1794 had authorized.

The name "Constellation" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed.^[3][4] The Flag Act of 1777 speaks of how the stars in the flag are "representing a new constellation".

Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Constellation and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. The Constellation's first duties with the newly formed US Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.