Forwarded from occasional reader Edward, who cannot authoritatively affirm it’s authenticity, but who concurs with me that it sounds about right:
LITTLE KNOWN TIDBIT OF US NAVAL HISTORY…
TheU. S. S. Constitution (‘Old Ironsides’), was a combat vessel, carried 48,600 gallonsof 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 ship’s 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 merchant ships, 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 whiskey distillery and transferred40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch board 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 whiskey, and 38,600 gallons of water.
Wooden ships and iron men.
Update: Historically aware readers have informed us in comments that this post is an anachronistic fiction, “fake but accurate” in other words.
Perhaps we are ready for big time, mainstream journalism!
There’s a lot to be said for tradition. It’s nice to see the airdales keeping that whole rum, wine and whiskey diet tradition alive.
At least, that was my experience on liberty. And at the club. And at the squadron BBQ. And at the barracks…….. A LOT of tradition, as it were.
I guess when they revoke DADT, we can also add sodomy and the lash (for those what like them sorts of things) back to the list too…
You’re a sick puppy Tim.
I like that. /heh
This is a highly entertaining myth.
Our Navy’s legendary performance in Clubs and other fine drinking establishments worldwide needs no embellishment. We truly are a force for good times (ashore only since 1914).
More on the myth: The English were not involved. The Quasi-War with France was during the 1798-1799 timeframe. Only John Paul Jones landed on Scottish soil, but in the Revolutionary war.
We truly are a force for good times…
Now THAT’S a motto to which I can relate. And only one word added. Quite nice, Salty Dog.
Back in those days, rum was a legal libation, and many of the traditions of the British Navy were brought over to the American Navy, including the daily tot of rum. It wasn’t till that fine fellow Josephus Daniels that alcolhol was banished from ships.
This has been blown apart every time it broaches the surface.
First in 1798, we were at peace with the Brits. Second, had our mission been to “harass English shipping”, we probably wouldn’t have made a supply stop in Jamaica, one of their colonies. Prolly wouldn’t have been warmly welcomed. Third, captured ships were stores of value. SOP was to put a prize crew on board, sail them to the nearest friendly port, sell them, and keep the money. Never would have scuttled twelve of them.
Being a guy who likes a good yarn, sorry to introduce that nasty thing called reality.
In 1798, US Constitution was harassing French shipping.
NaCly Dog beat me to it. In 1798 USS Constitution was chasing French not British ships. Total fantasy.
And since when should a good story be tainted by truth?
As one of my ministers used to say, lecher that he was, “Never allow the truth to get in the way of a good fantasy.”
Since when indeed!
Rum is for rust-proofing the ‘iron inside’ wot water is no good for.
So, the story was written by a Frenchman. Geez!
That made me laugh.
Alright, it’s finally a Friday, and the good stuff keeps flowing.
Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel ” pick up your shovel, mount your asses and Camels, and I will lead you to the promised land”.
Nearly 75 years ago, Roosevelt said, ” Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel. This is the promised land”.
Now The last two Presidents have stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of Camels, and mortgaged the promised land!
I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, Savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc . . .
I called Lifeline. Got a call center in Pakistan . I told them I was suicidal.
They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck….
Ookay, all you experts. When was the daily grog ration for U. S. sailor crews stopped? On the “first day of September” of what year? What’s the name of the song about it? The chorus goes: “For tonight we’ll merry merry be, for tonight we’ll merry merry be, for tonight we’ll merry merry be, Tomorrow we’ll be sober.” I used to sing this song in my folksong concerts and it’s a wonderful drinking song …
Marianne
Marianne
1914….
For complete history see:
http://lacc.fiu.edu/centers_institutes/cri/rum.pdf
Note that around 1820 the per capita consumption of distilled spirits in the United States was around 5 Gallons. When you consider that most of that was by adult men and they represented only 20 percent of the population (the rest being children and adult women) you can see we have quite an alcohol soaked history…
1) 1862 for the poor, downtrodden enlisted types! http://bit.ly/9Twzeg
2) Song was “Farewell to Grog” http://bit.ly/9Twzeg http://bit.ly/9jWNKl
Marianne, I am using a special font so that Virgil will be unable to read this and become tempted to test the songs powers.
BTW, I am not a fan of Josephus Daniels as he essentially bought our local paper (the N&O) and ensured that it would (apparently) remain forever a bastion of Democratic Party advocacy.
Alcohol consumption during the early 1800′s in America was nowhere near being the preserve of adult males. I recall reading part of a travelogue of the period written by a British visitor, commenting about stepping out the front door of a morning, and being careful to not step on a young boy. Who was sleeping off a drunken binge. Again.
It was nothing out of the ordinary to see 10 or 12-year old kids passed out drunk in the street.
There were reasons that the temperance movement carried such an evangelical fervor during the 19th century.
English household records from the 1500s and 1500s show that servants in many were allowed two quarts of beer and a pound of bread for breakfast. Another two quarts, bread, and some veggies and meat at mid-day, and two quarts at dinner, along with bread and meat, and maybe some wine and brandy.
I think there was a book written about that, actually, “The Alcoholic Republic.” Hic.
Just for grins & giggles, I did the math on this whole yarn:
Dividing all the rum, wine & scotch by 475 men = 530 gallons/man for a 209 day voyage – which equates to 2 1/2 gallons of fermented beverage per man per day! I don’t know about you, but I could barely drink that much water in the middle of frickin’ Kuwait in the summer! Sounds like an epic bender to me…
Well, Maj, I was wonderin’ when our host allowed that “Her landing party captured a whiskey distillery…“, if they might have fired up said distillery, separated the water & the spirit, completed their spiritual devotions and then used the water as “appropriate” for swabbies. Are ya sure of yer math, sir?
OldT6Flyer… Thanks for the date. My husband has been hauling out the encyclopaedias and hasn’t got the date yet. Wait until I tell him! Oneupmanship in marriage is a wondrous thing…
Marianne
I found it in the paper on the link. Google is a wonderful thing…
Was my source also OT6. Google is indeed a friend of the curious mind.
Books, the computer and my 16″ diameter world globe (just purchased this week) make for way too many hours spent on learning and adventures of the mind. Especially during cold, rainy days such as we are currently enjoying in NC.
What a beautiful ship… we should make some more!
Water in those days was carried in large casks, not in holding tanks conformal to the hull, There was a lot of open space wasted, as the casks, being cask shped, were ctylindrical. 48,000 gallons of water would be 9 semi trailor loads to store. That would be a lot of water to find space for.
Some of the water had to be used to soak the salt out of the beef.
And, yeah, that piece has been circulating since I was a little kid (and surely before), and I’ll be 60 soon. Every time I see it, seems like more unbelievable contrafactual stuff gets added to it.
The first time I saw it, it had supposedly been stuck up on some ship’s bulletin board to inspire the sailors not to waste so much fresh water, pointing out that Constitution had no evaporators but nonetheless did not run out of fresh water, and somebody else posted another piece of paper under it, mentioning the large quantities of ethylized beverages.
Which reminds me: We’ve just had a long discussion about DADT, but I would like to talk about the extra load placed on the evaporators by having gurlz aboard ship! As Captain Aubrey said, wimminz are actually capable of using fresh water to wash their underwear!
My father-in-law Mr.P.R.Evans served aboard her.
He is 94 years young.
Two cans
Per man
Per day
Perhaps.
Ijust did a little math. In those days, sailors were allowed one gallon of water a day. 475 sailors need 480 gallons gallons a day, to allow ullage ( spoilage and contamination ) and spillage, so 48,000 would only be enough for 100 days. I have to revise my belief about the difficulty in storage.
It might be actually possible to go over to history.navy.mil and look up some actual pursers’ records from back then. Unfortunately, the Naval Historical Center has recently changed both its name and its website, and the “improvements” in the latter make navigation of said site a real pain in the wazoo.
I guess there were too many droolers like me sucking up that yummy Navy bandwidth looking at pictures of USS Alabama’s weird skegs. (They did some good work with the hull shape of that class, making them go fast, though kinda short. Washington and North Carolina were cooler, of course.)
But the Big Badger Boat, BB-64, is the coolest BB of them all! And she HAS distillers!
147700 gallons of rum before the Azores and none after that. What happened VX? Did you disembark?
Nice work, juvat! But poor VX sure puts up with a lot…
Greetings:
What, no explanation of “spiking the main mast”?
That was splicing the main brace, and if you ever wrestled a big hank of manila you needed a drink. OFS grumbles off looking for a fid to pick his teeth….
OFS, I still shake my head in wonder at how the sailors did what they did back in the days of sailing ships. Especially in the extreme Northern or Southern latitudes.
Was one of the descriptive elements in “Two Years Before the Mast” by Mr. Dana that I so enjoyed and marveled at. Wooden ships and iron men.
“Your story’s touching but it sounds like a lie.”
Hasn’t ANYONE done the arithmetic? Those dates and figures would have each of the 475 crew members drinking almost 2 gal. of whisky (Scotch) and rum per DAY, PLUS three fifths of wine, AND the stores of rum of five British warships and twelve merchants which would have easily doubled that amount. Give us a break. Even in my prime I found it difficult to drink 2 gal. of hard liquor in a week. The daily rum ration in the British and U.S. Navies in the 18th century was about a half pint.
Sometimes a story is more important for its, err, illustrative qualities, rather than “just the facts ma’am”.
Different times, and has been said, iron men and wooden boats.
Those men led us to this time, and even if the facts MAY be a bit in question, the saga is not.
V/R