Fate
In 1853 Constellation was struck and broken up for scrap at the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia. At the same time, the keel was laid for what became known as the second USS Constellation. In the later half of the 20th century, the 1854 version was thought to be the 1797 version as the city of Baltimore promoted the ship as the original and some naval historians believed the Baltimore ship to be the rebuilt original. The paper "Fouled Anchors: The Constellation Question Answered", by Dana M. Wegner, et al., published by the Navy's David Taylor Research Center in 1991, concludes that they are different ships. The conclusive proof came during the renovation of the ship in Baltimore concluding in 1999 in which all evidence pointed to the construction of an entirely new sloop-of-war from the 1850s era and not the 1797 ship. While there is no indication in the US Naval Registry from the time period of a complete destruction or for an appropriation for an entirely new ship, the yard log and account books from Gosport record in detail the breakup of the old ship and the building of the new, all under the Navy's "General Increase" or lump-sum construction and repair budget. A supposed notation that the original ship was remodeled instead, using the original building materials to construct an entirely new sloop-of-war, was one of several "Constellation" documents determined by the FBI to be forgeries.
Read more about this topic: USS Constellation (1797)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“In the small circle of pain within the skull
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves,
Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,
Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
And we must think no further of you.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the “disenchantment of the world.” Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.”
—Max Weber (1864–1920)