USS Constellation: From Frigate to Sloop of War

Sea Power, Aug 2003 by Gardner, Sherry L

USS CONSTELLATION: From Frigate to Sloop of War, by Geoffrey M. Footner, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, Dec. 2002. 392 pp. $39.95. ISBN: 1-55750-284-6. Geoffrey Footner served as a U.S. naval officer in the Pacific and European theaters during World War II and after a career in international shipping began his maritime writings.

He has authored articles and books on many different sailing craft and is an authority on wooden ship-building and its architecture. Built by order of President George Washington in 1797, the USS Constellation remains one of the nation's oldest surviving warships. She rests in Baltimore Harbor today, a reminder of endurance. In this well-documented study, Footner attempts to lay to rest a decades-old controversy among naval historians, the U.S. Navy, local governments, and various historic ship foundations, offering what many will believe to be the final word on the provenance of the Constellation. Footner concludes that the ship now berthed in Baltimore's Inner Harbor is indeed the original built by David Stodder. Footner traces the ship's complicated history, examining her exciting operations and four rebuilds, including an extensive redesign in 1853. With nine black-and-white photographs, 25 line drawings, one map, notes, bibliography, and index.