USS Constellation on the Dismal Coast : Willie Leonard's journal,1859-1861

Resource Information

The work USS Constellation on the Dismal Coast : Willie Leonard's journal,1859-1861 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Bates College. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

USS Constellation on the Dismal Coast : Willie Leonard's journal,1859-1861

Title remainder

Willie Leonard's journal,1859-1861

Statement of responsibility

edited by C. Herbert Gilliland

Creator

• Leonard, William Ambrose, 1837-1889

Contributor

• Gilliland, C. Herbert

Subject

• Constellation (Frigate) -- History
• Leonard, William Ambrose, 1837-1889 -- Diaries
• Slave trade -- Africa, West -- History -- 19th century
• Antislavery movements -- United States -- History -- 19th century
• United States. Navy -- Sea life | History -- 19th century
• United States, Navy | African Squadron

Genre

• Diaries

Language

eng

Summary

"Today the twenty-gun sloop USS Constellation is a floating museum in Baltimore Harbor; in 1859 it was an emblem of the global power of the American sailing navy. When young William E. Leonard boarded the Constellation as a seaman for what proved to be a twenty-month voyage to the African coast, he began to compose a remarkable journal. Sailing from Boston, the Constellation, flagship of the U.S. African Squadron, was charged with the interception and capture of slave-trading vessels illegally en route from Africa to the Americas. During the Constellation's deployment, the squadron captured a record number of these ships, liberating their human cargo and holding the captains and crews for criminal prosecution. At the same time, tensions at home and in the squadron increased as the American Civil War approached and erupted in April 1861. Leonard recorded not only historic events but also fascinating details about his daily life as one of the nearly 400-member crew. He saw himself as not just a diarist, but a reporter, making special efforts to seek out and record information about individual crewmen, shipboard practices, recreation and daily routine--from deck swabbing and standing watch to courts martial and dramatic performances by the Constellation Dramatic Society. This good-humored gaze into the lives and fortunes of so many men stationed aboard a distinguished American warship makes Gilliland's edition of Willie Leonard's journal a significant work of maritime history"--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography

Series statement

Studies in maritime history