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:
“To die for one’s country is such a worthy fate that all compete for so beautiful a death.”
—Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
“I am no Poet here; my pen ‘s the spout,
Where the rain water of my eyes run out,
In pity of that name, whose fate wee see
Thus copied out in griefs Hydrography:
The Muses are not Mer-maids, though upon
His death the Ocean might turn Helicon”
—John Cleveland (1613–1658)