USS Congress (1799)

For other ships with the same name, see USS Congress.

A drawing of a ship's sails. The ship has 3 masts in which all sails are set and full of wind. The bow of the ship is pointed to right of the frame.
Congress by Charles Ware, 1816
History
United States
NameUSS Congress
NamesakeCongress[1]
Ordered27 March 1794[1]
BuilderJames Hackett
Cost$197,246[2]
Laid down1795[3]
Launched15 August 1799
Maiden voyage6 January 1800
FateBroken up, 1834
General characteristics
Type38-gun frigate[4][5][Note 1]
Displacement1,265 tons[1]
Length164 ft (50 m) lpp[4]
Beam41 ft (12 m)[4]
Depth of hold13.0 ft (4.0 m)[4]
DecksOrlop, Berth, Gun, Spar
PropulsionSail
Complement340 officers and enlisted[1]
Armament
  • 1799
  • 28 × 18 pounders (8 kg)
  • 12 × 9 pounders (4 kg)
  • 1812
  • 24 × 18 pounders (8 kg)
  • 20 × 32 pounders (15 kg)

USS Congress was a nominally rated 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. James Hackett built her at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and she was launched on 15 August 1799. She was one of the original six frigates whose construction the Naval Act of 1794 had authorized. The name "Congress" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed.[6][7]Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Congress and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than the standard frigates of the period.

Her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War. During the War of 1812 she made several extended length cruises in company with her sister ship President and captured, or assisted in the capture of twenty British merchant ships. At the end of 1813, due to a lack of materials to repair her, she was placed in ordinary for the remainder of the war. In 1815 she returned to service for the Second Barbary War and made patrols through 1816. In the 1820s she helped suppress piracy in the West Indies, made several voyages to South America, and was the first U.S. warship to visit China. Congress spent her last ten years of service as a receiving ship until ordered broken up in 1834.

  1. ^ a b c d "Congress". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History & Heritage Command. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  2. ^ Roosevelt (1883), p. 48.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Allen47 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference Chapelle128 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Beach32 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Pickering, Timothy (14 March 1795). Letter to George Washington. Founders Online, National Archives. Retrieved 25 September 2019
  7. ^ Brodine, Charles E.; Crawford, Michael J.; Hughes, Christine F. (2007). Ironsides! the Ship, the Men and the Wars of the USS Constitution. Fireship Press. p. 8. ISBN 9781934757147.


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