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GOODRICH, REAR ADMIRAL "ROPE YARNS FROM THE OLD
NAVY." Page
8: "The lower tier of the
frigate's [CONSTITUTION's] guns were landed and in their place study tables were
installed. The [fourth] class (over 200)
was divided into gun's crews of sixteen or more lads. Each crew had its own study table on the gun
deck and its mess table on the berth deck
just below, where also, the midshipmen,
or, to be exact, the acting midshipmen, slept
in hammocks slung from the beams overhead at night and stowed every morning in the
hammock nettings on the upper or spar deck.
When the berth deck became crowded, a lot of
us had to swing on the gun deck." Page
10: "We found Lieutenant Lull
[CO, CONSTITUTION, Sep 1861‑Nov 1863] to be a tall imposing person with a stern,
forbidding countenance...but later I discovered that this grim visage was but a mask to conceal
a large and sympathetic heart."
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