Civil War
From 1855–1858 Constellation performed largely diplomatic duties as part of the US Mediterranean Squadron.
She was flagship of the African Squadron from 1859–1861. In this period she disrupted the African slave trade by interdicting three slave ships and releasing the imprisoned Africans.
- On 21 December 1859, she captured the brig Delicia which was "without colors or papers to show her nationality completely fitted in all respects for the immediate embarcation of slaves..."
- On 26 September 1860, Constellation captured the "fast little bark" Cora with 705 slaves, who were set free in Monrovia, Liberia.
- On 21 May 1861, Constellation overpowered the slaver brig Triton in African coastal waters. It held no slaves, although "every preparation for their reception had been made."
Constellation spent much of the war as a deterrent to Confederate cruisers and commerce raiders in the Mediterranean Sea.
Read more about this topic: USS Constellation (1854)
Famous quotes by civil war:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)