G's Baltimore Adventure - The USS Constellation

[Composed 9/21/2024]

After touring the US Coast Guard Cutter 37 we headed to our final ship of the day: the USS Constellation. Since we arrived in Baltimore we had been referring to this vessel as the 'pirate ship' because its towering masts looked the part.

While winding our way through an exhibition on the way to boarding I learned that the Constellation is so much cooler than a pirate ship: it was, among other roles, an Anti-Slaver. For its early mission in the 1850's it served as the Flag Ship for the African Squadron and helped enforce anti-slave trade laws.

But wait, you might ask, wasn't slavery still legal in the US at this time? It was. There's clearly a duality going on with this mission. On one hand, it feels modern and progressive, with the US providing resources to fight the scourge of slavery half-way around the world; doing so with an integrated crew. This 1844 report from the US Navy underscores this perspective:

The operations of the [Africa] squadron have, it is believed, exercised a favorable influence in preventing the slave trade. With the provision of our law denouncing it as piracy, and the presence of our own Naval forces, with authority to visit all vessels under the American flag, it is not probable that our citizens will engage in this disgraceful and perilous traffic, or our flag, be used by others to any great extent.

If other Christian nations would inflict the same punishment on the offenders, it is not improbable that the trade would cease.

On the other hand, you had figures like Commodore Issac Mayo who commanded the African Squadron for a time and who himself was an enslaver. While he was off rescuing captured individuals he was making headlines at home for individuals trying to escape his capture.

The USS Constellation's anti-slavery duties ended when it was recalled as part of the Civil War.

Once we boarded the Constellation, we perused the upper deck, known as the spar deck. At the front of the ship we found a ranger talking about, and preparing to fire, the ship's forward Parrott rifle (alas, named for Mr. Parrott, not the bird). G, I think fearing a loud explosion, wanted nothing to do with this demonstration. So we put some distance between the ranger and ourselves.

We wandered the spar deck and admired the masts, endless lines, and other cool sailing features. Of course, we took turns 'driving' the ship by putting our hands on the ship's wheel, or as it's properly known, the helm.

The helm underscores a common theme of the USS Constellation: simplicity. The helm looks impressive, but it's little more than a wheel connected to the ship's tiller by a rope. The tiller is then connected to the rudder, which steers the vessel. This tiller and rudder arrangement is the same configuration I used to steer my tiny Sunfish sailboat when earning my Sailing Merit Badge in the 1990's.

To further emphasize the simplicity of this setup, if the helm gets damaged it's possible to send sailors below to the tiller room, where steering can be done directly.

From the Spar deck we made our way down a level to the Gun deck. Here we found an impressive array of canon, all seemingly ready to bombard Baltimore's inner harbor. From what I can tell, the impressive looking fire power was one of USS Constellation's most important assets. With it, it could camouflage the fact that she was a sail only vessel built at a time when her competition didn't solely rely on wind. This put her at an almost comical disadvantage to modern enemy ships.

Her attempt to run down a Confederate ship in 1864 proves the point succinctly:

On Dec. 19, 1864, as the Union warship sailed north, a blockade runner was sighted. Stellwagen gave chase. The quarry, however, realizing that its pursuer lacked steam power, engaged its engines and escaped to windward.

Was the public outraged that their their tax dollars were spent to build an inferior relic? It's seems they were not; they saw all those glorious guns and cheered the effort on.

The Western Democrat, Charlotte, NC, September 15, 1854:
The new sloop-of-war Constellation is capable of throwing a greater weight of metal than her namesake the frigate, and is somewhat larger in her dimensions. She is one hundred and seventy six feet between perpendiculars ; beam, forty-one ; hold to gundeck, twenty-one ; length on the load line, one hundred and seventy. The new ship his been built with a spar deck, on which she will mount two ten inch, pivot guns ; on the gun deck she will carry twenty guns, sixteen ; sixty-eightpounders, and four long thirtv-pouuders, which will make her a very formidable man-of war.

Grand River Times, Grad Haven, Michigan, October 11, 1854 A Peace Maker. The Constellation a new sloop of war, of 1,400 tons and 201 feet in length is to be launched at Portsmouth on the 25th inst. This vessel we learn from the Globe, presents to the eye a structure of strength and capacity scarcely equalled in our navy by any vessel below a first class frigate. On her gun deck she has twenty-four ports, but will only mount twenty guns, 16 of 68 pounders and 4 long 32 pounders. On her spar deck forward and aft, she will mount 2 ten-shell guns on pivots, carrying a ball weighing 120 pounds. Her spars will be about the same as a second class frigate, her main yard being 90 feet in length.
This vessel, the Globe thinks, will bo the model sloop-of-war of the world.

Then, as now, appearance goes a long a way.

However, before you write off the Constellation as a bureaucratic fiasco, you do need to appreciate that the old school sail-only tech wasn't without advantages.

Then as now, the navy consider's a ship's endurance, that is: "the minimum amount of burnable fuel the ship must carry." With wind power only, the USS Constellation had nearly unlimited endurance, which made it ideal for long distance missions.

So what do you do with a vessel that mainly looks tough and can travel long distances without breaking a sweat? You deploy them overseas in diplomatic roles. Which is exactly what they did with the Constellation. Even after she was recalled to mainland for the Civil War, she was again sent out to the Mediterranean Sea to "protect US interests." What a clever use for a ship who's strengths could be affectionately considered unique.

From the guns we made our way forward to the captain's quarters. The USS Constellation may have wildly different construction and tech (or lack there of) from the sub and cutter we toured earlier, but some elements remain unchanged. One is that the captain's space will always be the most luxurious. Here too we find this to be the case. Our favorite feature of the captain's quarter's: he has not one, but two bathrooms for his use. And by bathroom, I mean a seat he can sit on with an opening to the sea below. Now that's luxury!

From the Gun deck, we descended another level to the berth deck.

The berth deck is where the sailors live, and everything about it underscore's the simplicity of the Constellation's design. With hammocks hung in place, it becomes the sleeping quarters. With hammocks stowed, and picnic blankets (not the historically accurate term, but essentially the same thing) spread out, it becomes a mess hall. With picnic blankets stashed away, it becomes a rec room.

The curators of the ship gave us a taste of this setup, with a few hammocks hung up and a tarp spread out with some dinner ware on top. We asked, and sure enough, they encouraged us to climb into the hammocks and give them a try. G and I gladly obliged. It wasn't half bad, swinging there for a few moments without a care in the world.

And yet, when you consider the reality of life aboard a ship, that care free image quickly evaporates. With approximately 220 sailors on board, those hammocks must have been packed together like sardines. The low ceilings meant that one could barely stand, and lack of seating meant that sitting wasn't especially comfortable either. Natural light is limited, and the only artificial light available was by flame; a scary proposition considering you're floating on a wooden vessel draped in canvas. There are three toilets available on the entire ship, two of which were in the captains suite for his use. In short, these sailors had it rough.

Finally, we descended to the final deck, the Hold. Here G's height became a true asset, as I found myself nearly having to crawl to avoid hitting my head. The Hold was the ship's storage area. It's also here that you can see the oldest parts of the ship, much of which goes back to its 1854 launching.

Given the long distance missions that the Constellation undertook, the Hold, with it's life supporting supplies, would have been a critical feature of the ship. I couldn't find any specifics on how long the Constellation went without resupply, but I did find this 1846 record of the USS Yorktown making the journey from its Africa Squadron base back to the Boston area. The Yorktown, like the Constellation was a sloop of war, though, she was smaller and had nearly half the number of crew aboard. Still, it took her 27 days to cross the Atlantic.

That's weeks of nothing but featureless blue. The captain would benefit from modern (for the time period) navigation tech that would make the crossing relatively safe and predictable. But still, all that separated the crew from starvation was the supplies in the Hold.

Again, that's a hard pass for experiences I'd like to endure.

Speaking of supplies, another notable mission the Constellation undertook was in March of 1880, when the ship's guns and ballast were removed and replaced by 2,500 barrels of potatoes and flour. The was part of a effort to deliver relief to victims of the Ireland's 1880 famine.

This mission echoed one conducted by the USS Jamestown in 1847. The Jamestown, also a sloop of war, delivered relief supplies for the Irish Famine of that era. This is considered the first instance of any nation delivering humanitarian aid to another.

Prior to 1847, the bulk of interaction between nation-states consisted mainly of warfare and other hostilities, mixed with occasional trade; the entire concept of international charity existed neither in the moral consciousness nor as part of the political strategy of monarchs or elected leaders. If anything, such a gesture toward a foreign nation would likely have been viewed as a sign of weakness.
.. More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland.

Between rescuing those destined for bondage, and following in the footsteps of delivering food, not bombs, the USS Constellation sure knew how to do a Mitzvah. I left the ship with a surprising sense of pride. The USS Constellation represents not just a legacy of seamanship, but of finding innovative ways to make the world a better place.

Waving goodbye to the USS Constellation we made our way to a pizza lunch and then back to the hotel so G and I could both take naps. As mornings go, this one had been perfect!

Inspiration and Innovation for Peace - A Lesson from B'nei Brak

Chag Sameach and Happy Passover! We had two wonderful seders (Thanks David and Maryn for hosting the first night!). For my seder prep, I came across a fresh perspective on one of the stories within the Haggadah. In the interest of learning something new every year, I'm sharing it below. Enjoy!

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Within the Haggadah's retelling of the late night study of the five rabbis, it's not unusual to pick up on the location of the story as a key element. The Velveteen Rabbi explains:

What were these rabbis doing in B’nei Brak, which was the hometown of Rabbi Akiva only? Why didn’t their students join them in celebrating the seder? Why didn’t the rabbis themselves notice the rising of the sun?

Context is everything. This story takes place during the rule of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who ordered that the Temple be moved so he could put a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount. In the year 123 of the Common Era, a guerilla insurgency began, which resulted in a crack-down by the Roman authorities.

B’nei Brak was the headquarters of the rebellion against Roman occupation, a rebellion of which Rabbi Akiva was a leader. Because of rebel activities, the Roman authorities had forbidden gatherings of Jews. The seder described in this passage was a chance not only to discuss the liberation from Egypt—but also to plan a strategy of resistance against Roman occupation. The students were standing guard, ready to caution the rabbis to disband at daybreak, lest they be caught.

This tale may be read as an encouragement to become so joyfully immersed in the seder that we don’t notice the passing of time…and it may also be read as a story of how one liberation begets another. Celebrating our freedom from servitude can be a radical act. It was Rabbi Akiva, after all, who famously answered the query, “Which is better, study or action?” with the response, “Study—if it leads to action.”

I recently discovered a new link to B'nei Brak, but to appreciate it, we need to step back in time. In the span of Jewish history, however, we're going back a mere 185 years; practically yesterday.

The date is Thursday, June 11th, 1840, and the place is Staunton, Virginia. Residents opened their copies of the Staunton Spectator, and General Advertiser to read of a gruesome murder that took place 6,000 miles away in Damascus, Syria. The murder is so violent that the newspaper didn't want to believe the account.

Some weeks ago we received the announcement of the murder of a Christian missionary and his servant at Damascus, but the details were so horrible that we refrained from giving publicity to them, and hoped they could only have been the invention of a disordered imagination inventing a tail too frightful to be believed. However, the following letter proves that the tale was too true.

The article describes in detail how Father Thomas was restrained, his throat slit, his body hung upside down and his blood drained. His body was then dismembered and his bones disposed of in the sewer.

The bones were discovered and those who perpetrated the crime ultimately confessed. Their motive came down to a religious obligation:

They all said that they were incapable of committing murder, but that they had acted up to the precepts of their religion, in which it is prescribed to make their Easter leavened bread with Christian blood.

Readers in New York City who picked up their May 18th, 1840 copy of the Morning Herald read about the same incident but from a dramatically different perspective. Yes, there was a missing Christian leader in Damascus. However, claims that Jews murdered him were extracted by torture. And the bones that served as evidence in the case were anything but:

Official accounts from Beyroot, of the 15th March, rectify the details of the Smyrna journals, published in our paper [the Austrian Observer] of yesterday, respecting the pretended murder of Father Thomas, the prior of the Spanish convent at Damascus; the fact is nowise proved, and the perpetrators of the deed are not discovered. The medical men and surgeons, charged by the local authorities with the examination of the bones found in the sewers of the Jewish quarter, have declared that the bones must have been there a long time, and were bones of animals.

The Morning Herald put the charge in context by citing it as an example of Blood Libel:

If the persecution of the Jews at Damascus, as several letters affirm, from the often-repeated assertion that the Jews eat Christian blood at their Passover, this merely proves that centuries cannot destroy opinions repugnant to human nature, which are contrary to the letter of the Jewish law.

The writer of the Morning Herald piece closes with this point showing the cruel absurdity of the whole incident:

... in this instance, [the murder] is still more void of probability, as the matter of Father Thomas took place in February, whereas the Jewish Passover is in April.

As an aside, Blood Libel is a charge I associate with medieval times. As this incident shows, I was way off. It's gut-wrenching to read such a vivid account taking place in what are effectively modern times. Even more alarming, the Wikipedia page on Blood Libel shows that the Damascus Affair, what the above incident would become known as, was not an outlier in either time or scope.

Turning back to the world of newspapers, the most notable response to the incident was by the Times of London, which published articles arguing all sides of the conflict. On August 17th, 1840 they took the unusual step of publishing a nearly complete English translation of the Haggadah. They did so to refute the claim that Jews use blood during Passover:

A correspondent has furnished the annexed very minute account of this ceremony, which will be exceedingly curious in itself to most of our readers, and has at the same time an evident bearing on the Damascus case. It repels strongly the barbarous notion that human blood, or blood of any kind, is essential to its celebration.

While I've come across a number of low resolution images of the August 17th edition of the Times, I've yet to find a copy that's legible to persuse. Sefaria, thankfully, has a translation who's claimed source is the Times of London's text. This blog post shares details of the Time's edition that corroborate the Sefaria text.

For example, both the blog entry and Sefari note that Rabbi Gamliel's 'Three Things' include an explanation that Christian Blood isn't included in his list:

Rabbi Gamlieh saith, that whosoever doth not make mention of three things used in the Passover hath not done his duty (Christian’s blood is not mentioned): the paschal lamb, the unleavened cake, and bitter herbs.

There's a similar comment at Yachatz, when the matza is traditionally broken:

The master then breaks the middle cake in the dish, and, leaving one half of it there, he lays the other half by for the offering, which is nothing more nor less than a piece of the Passover cake, and it is that which it is said human blood forms a portion of.

Other than these notations about blood not being used, and a few old timey word choices, the translation is surprisingly ordinary.

Except, that is for the way the story of the Five Rabbis is translated. Check out how the readers of the Times of London saw this passage on the 17th:

And thus it is related by Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Elazar, the son of Azariah, Rabbi Akeba, and Rabbi Trapon, that they once met (on the night of Passover, in a place inhabited by Jewish proselytes, said to be descended from Haman) and continued discoursing of the departure from Egypt all that night till their disciples came, and said, ‘Instructors, it is time to read the morning prayer.’

London readers didn't read about B'nei Brak, instead they were provided with a parenthesized equivalent: in a place inhabited by Jewish proselytes, said to be descended from Haman.

I'd never seen this paragraph translated this way, and neither had anyone at our seder. Two questions immediately came to mind: what's the source of this equivalency, and why opt to include it?

The what is easy to answer. This idea that B'nei Brak is the place inhabited by Jewish descendants of (wicked, boo!) Haman comes from the Talmud. Sanhedrin 96b, verse 9 says in part:

The baraita continues: Among the descendants of Haman were those who studied Torah in Bnei Brak. ...

Gittin 57b, verse 7 also mentions:

The Gemara adds that some of Haman’s descendants studied Torah in Bnei Brak, ...

The why took some digging. Looking at the dialogue between the chief Rabbi defending the Jews in Damascus, and the Pasha accusing them, I got the sense that their arguments took on, at times, an almost technical air. Here's how the September 19th, 1840 edition of the Sunbury and Shamokin Journal reports at least part of their dialogue:

And of the Haman, the chief Rabbi of the city, he requested him to sign the confession, saying, You surely killed him.

(Here follows the answer of the Rabbi, refusing to confess to a falsehood, which was published in the extracts which appeared in The Sun.)

The Pasha then said, 'At least sign to this, that by your law the property of the Gentiles is allowed to you.'

The Rabbi answered, 'It is false.'

The Pasha answered, 'In the Talmud (as I am informed) it is said from Habakkuk, 'He saw and spoiled the nations.'

The Rabbi said, 'This verse refers to the heathen idolaters, and the despoiling of the Gentile is a heinous crime.'

In this context, one can almost hear the accuser citing the Megillah as proof of how bloodthirsty Jews are. To which, the Rabbi responds that the Talmud talks about the descendants of Haman studying Torah.

While this hypothesis may earn points for creativity, it's way off. The real reason why the Times editors arrived at this translation was strictly practical.

The first English translation of the Haggadah was published in 1770 by Alexander Alexander. In it, he faced the challenge of how to translate B'nei Brak:

[The] Hebrew name “Bnei Brak” consists of two words of which the first, “Bnei”, can be translated as “children of”, while the second, “Brak”, could be understood as the name of a person, Berak, which was confusing for early translators.

In 1770, the first to translate the Haggadah into English (London), Alexander, therefore translated that the rabbis “were entertained amongst the children of Berak” and added the footnote that Berak is “a place inhabited by proselytes, Jews descended from Haman.”

Years ago I printed a copy of Alexander's Haggadah for use at our Seder. Sure enough, in that copy the footnote is present:

The editors of the Times didn't use Alexander's translation of the Haggadah; instead, they used a later one by Isaac Levi. In Levi's translation he took another approach to this translation:

A far less-known but extremely influential translator/ editor is Isaac Levi, the third translator of the Haggadah into English. Isaac took David Levi’s translations and “edited” them (making gross mistakes along the way). In this instance, he reversed the English “children of Berak” to the name Bnei Brak but instead of translating it, he left the name in Hebrew. He didn’t touch the footnote:

This image shows what the editors of the Times had to work with:

They were left with little choice but to swap the Hebrew for the footnote, which gives us the translation we see today.

So we have Alexander and some no doubt hurried Times editors to thank for the above translation.

I think, however, they were on to something with the phrasing of their text. Even in times of peril and persecution, like the Damascus Affair, it serves us well to recite the story of the five rabbis with Alexander's footnote in mind. That is, we strive not just to come together in community, but to do so in the seemingly impossible state of harmony with the descendants of our enemies.

Equally important, the Times of London's Haggadah is here to remind us that such a goal will only come about if take innovative and creative action to get there.

This year we are slaves. Next year may be free. Now we are here; next year may we be in a B'nei Brak.