The second historic ship we visited in Baltimore, Maryland after the USS Torsk was the flagship of the Union’s anti-slave trade African Squadron in the American Civil War, the USS Constellation. The Constellation was the last sail-only warship built by the US Navy, a corvette, and built in the Gosport yard, Portsmouth, Virginia in 1854. It made one of the first captures for the Union side in the war when it took the South Carolina slave ship Triton in African coastal waters in May, 1861. Although it did patrol American waters for a period it was mostly used as a deterrent and as protection for Union commerce against Confederate raiders in the Mediterranean Sea.
Photos of the USS Constellation were from a mix of my backup camera and my phone as 2012 was the year I went to America and left my main camera bag at home. Still makes me shudder to think of that memory.
