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USS Constitution

From her chaplain’s diary comes this graphic story of the final sea battle of America’s famous frigate

Several years ago the Indiana University family voted to collect fines from professors who parked overtime on the campus. The money raised was turned over to the University library to buy additions to its special collections. Among the first purchases made, for the University’s War of 1812 Collection, was the manuscript journal which served as the basis for the story which is printed here.

Too many of our wonderful historic ships have been lost, but funds recently appropriated by Congress will help to see a major part of our history belayed—tied down, secure.

     
It was a bright day for the Republic, that afternoon of May 15, 1815, when the U.S.S. Constitution victoriously dropped anchor oil the Battery at New York.

So roared Captain Isaac Hull as Old Ironsides closed in mortal combat with the British frigate Guerrière. On the accuracy of his prediction hung all of America’s naval prestige in 1812

July 16, 1812: The United States of America had been at war with Great Britain for twenty-eight days. The American frigate Constitution, 44 guns, was at sea, on a passage from Washington, where she had refitted, to New York.

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