U.S.S. Constitution: Preparing To Sail on the Ebb Tide

Originally commissioned by George Washington in 1794 to help answer the threat to our shipping overseas, the U.S.S. Constitution was launched in Boston Harbor in 1797 as part of a trio of 44 gun ships, which also included the Constellation and the United States.

At her bicentenary in 1997, the Constitution remained the oldest commissioned warship in the world. She would excel herself in hosts of naval engagements from the Atlantic to the Pacific and including the Mediterranean, West Indies and an exceptionally daring confrontation with two British warships off Madeira.

But it was during the War of 1812, declared against Britain, that the Constitution would gain early glory under the command of her new, energetic and demanding captain, Isaac Hull. Initially out sailing the enemy in a first contact with the Royal Navy off the New Jersey coast, July 16, the frigate would see substantial action a month later when she sighted H.M.S. Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia. When they came within range they pounded each other for some two hours and it was during this engagement that a startled American seaman, noticing British cannonballs bouncing off Constitution’s hull yelled “Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!” Henceforth the venerable ship would be known as “Old Ironsides.” The British was reduced to a helpless hulk and duly surrendered.

The scene is of the ship in Boston Harbor in her days of glory. She is shown making preparations to sail when the tide she is stemming starts to recede.

View Artist’s Biography