Little known American military history:
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>
> The U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat vessel carried 48,600
> gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was
> sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried
> no evaporators (i.e. fresh water distillers!).
>
> However, let it be noted that according to her log, “On July 27, 1798, the
> U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475
> officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600
> pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum.”
>
> Her mission: “To destroy and harass English shipping.” Making Jamaica on 6
> October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum.
>
> Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 November. She
> provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.
>
>
> On 18 November, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated
> five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen,
> salvaging only the rum aboard each.
>
> By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, although
> unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her
> landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons
> of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.
>
> The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February, 1799, with no
> cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky and 38,600
> gallons of stagnant water.
>
>
>
Found a lot of references to this particular “event” but much of it was anecdotal or simply repeats of the above. Nothing reputable. Any Doper historians out there that can shed some light on the truth?
Well, I don’t think the British and Americans were at war during the time period specified in the article. The American Revoluntionary war ended almost two decades before this occured, and the War of 1812 was still more than a decade in the future.
I noticed that too, but put it off to the way this kind of stuff gets changed as it circulates. Other mission profiles include being dispatched to the Carribean to fight pirates. The whole thing still smacks of the big BS to me though.
Well, here is the official list of engagements in which the Constitution was involved, which pretty much puts paid to the list of actions in the glurge. (Note that the first fight was with a British privateer, not warship, probably because it was using its papers to mask piracy. The remaining battles in that time period were with French (and American) ships.
As noted, an unarmed run into Scotland during a time of peace would have been rather more widely known than to merely appear in a bit uf glurge.
Well, aside from the other inconsistencies already noted, that works out to about 2.5 gallons of hard liquor per person per day. At that era, the liquor ration was usually served as grog (at least in the British navy), in a 3-1 or 4-1 mix with water (http://www.contemplator.com/history/grog.html). The day’s ration was usually 1/2 pint of rum (considered equivalent to a gallon! of beer).
So even though sailors of the time were hella hard drinkers, probably no human could drink 2.5 gallons a day of liquor, especially on low water rations. The numbers seem off by a factor of 20 or so.
Oh, for the record, the Constitution didn’t engage any British ships until the War of 1812. Don’t see any records of any cruises anywhere near Britain or the coast of Scotland. (http://www.history.navy.mil/docs/war1812/const7.htm)
But as Finagle pointed out- sailors didn’t drink much water “straight”. They drank “grog” or “small beer”, or sometimes wine. Even just drinking the standard ration, many sailors likely were “impaired”- or close to it- most of their day.
“Straight” water was used for washing (very lttle) and cooking. Even just cooking the “salt beef” took considerable water.
So- althogh the details in the story are specious, the point made is pretty correct. Oddly enough, sailors were healthier than their land lubbing counterparts. Fresh air, and less contact with diseases accounted for this.
Well, a quick search shows that the Navy pretty much went dry around 1914.
What’s not told is that ships out on deplyment carry beer for the boys. More than 45 days at sea without a port of call earns the crew a beer day. A buddy of mine in the Marines out “on float” told me about this. All I could think was that the Navy got sensible somewhere in those intervening 90 years. Though I recall he said the reation was IIRC two beers per man. Not enough to exactly get the whole crew pie-eyed…
Other glurgeons of the same story claim it took place in 1779, almost 20 years prior to the commissioning of Old Ironsides, but during the Revolution.
However, I cannot help but note some vague similarities between the above horse-crap and this story about the 18-gun sloop-of-war, Ranger:
There is certainly a grain of truth to this story, as confirmed by the U.S. Navy’s Historical Center, but I still doubt some of the details in the above quote.
(According to some sources I’ve seen, Jones was reputedly the son of the Earl’s gardener.)
I can’t speak for the US Navy, but I do know that one of the reasons the Royal Navy served alcohol to their sailors in the days of fighting sail was because the water was flat out undrinkable after a few weeks at sea. You can try this at home - get a wooden cask, unsterilized and probably not overly clean, fill it with water, and stick it in your basement for a month or two. This works best if there are rats in your basement, and the water isn’t your chlorinated tapwater, but out of a murky pond somewhere. I can’t imagine that conditions on American ships would have been much different, even though they tended to go on extended cruises to a lesser degree than RN ships.
As to sailors being impaired, this strikes me as being moderately unlikely. I’d think you’d suffer a lot of casualties amongst the topmen in particular if they were significantly impaired. That said, a half pint of rum or a gallon of beer is quite a bit - however, the alcohol content wasn’t necessarily the same as modern products. Anyone know anything about the alcohol content of early 19th century booze?
Like posted above, water pretty much went bad when it ws put up, no chlorine, and it probably came out of a dirty well. I think that in that era rain water was caught at every opportunity for drinking water.
The wife’s Navy ship had “Beer Day”, where everyone could get two beers, but that was a one-day event after being out a long time. Not every day after a given time at sea. I floated as a Marine, and we had NO beer at all, but I cannot say for sure we were out 45 days straight.
Although late 18th and early 19th century British and Americans were indeed heavy drinkers, the alcohol ration had another purpose: distilled spirits were among the handful of things that could be kept indefinitely without spoiling. I’d have to look it up but I’d wager that the amount of alcohol in a sailor’s daily ration was pretty close to the amount that can be metabolized daily as carbohydrate. In other words, it contributed to their daily calorie consumption; and remember sailors did staggering amounts of manual labor every day. They probably worked most of it off.