Constitution Gun Port Lids

I'm not aware of any good source that deals specifically with the United States.  We know that she was built to the same design as the Constitution and President, with the notable exception that the U.S. was fitted with a "round house"  (presumably something in the nature of a raised poop deck) to accommodate the quarters of a commodore. I think I've seen a couple of photos of her (taken very late in her career, just before the Civil War), but they were taken from a considerable distance and didn't show much in the way of details.  Some folks in Philadelphia have gotten extremely interested in the history of this ship, but if they've published anything about her precise appearance I haven't seen it.

So about all I can suggest regarding the gunport lids is what I typed above, in reference to the Constitution.  If I were trying to build a model of the U.S. in her War of 1812 configuration I'd probably leave the portlids off.  Frankly, though, before I did that I'd probably do some more digging.  I'm just not entirely comfortable with the image of those sailors plugging up the gunports with unhinged, temporary boards - in a period when the hinged gunport lid seems to have been in such common use.  But I have too much respect for Captain Martin to ignore what he says.

Regarding the color of the bulwark interiors - it's pretty clear that there wasn't any official policy about such things in the U.S. Navy at the time.  The inboard works of the Hull model in Salem are green.  (I'm a little nervous about that one.  I think the modeler - such as he was - had three pots of paint,  black, white, and green, that he used for everything.  I'm not convinced he was paying a great deal of attention to where each color ended up.  On the other hand, Captain Martin seems to be pretty emphatic that Isaac Hull painted lots of stuff on board the ship green - including one of the small boats.)  Whether Stephen Decatur followed Hull's lead on board the U.S. I have no idea.

I'm aware of four colors that (I think) were in use at about that time on the interior bulwarks:  yellow ochre (like H.M.S. Victory), red ochre (going out of fashion, but probably still in use), whitewash (not as common as it would be a few years later, but probably not unheard of), and green (like the Hull model).  If I had to pick one, I'd be inclined to go with the green.  But if I saw a model of the United States with its bulwarks painted in any of those colors, I certainly wouldn't feel like I was in a position to say it was wrong.

Very interesting question with, I fear, no simple answer.

I haven't seen the Anatomy of the Ship book yet, but a number of reviewers have had some negative things to say about it.  I have the impression (I emphasize again that I haven't seen the book itself) that the author ignored some important sources.  I'd better drop the subject of that particular book there, till I've seen it.

To my knowledge the most definitive source on the subject of the Constitution's appearance, and how it's changed over the years, is Capt. (Ret.) Tyrone Martin.  He was the ship's commanding officer for a number of years in the 1970s, and his book about her, A Most Fortunate Ship (available now in a second, revised edition) is the best piece of scholarship about her that I know about.  Captain Martin, on the basis of a great deal of research in primary written documents and contemporary illustrations, came to the rather surprising conclusion that she didn't have hinged gunport lids at all during her early career.  Apparently the ports were closed with some sort of temporarily fixed boards, rather than the hinged ones that I would have taken for granted.

The first time I read that one I found it hard to swallow.  But I have a great deal of respect for Captain Martin.  I also took a look at a number of contemporary pictures of other American frigates from the period.  There aren't many of them, but several of them (most notably those by the French artist Jean Jerome Baugean) are beautifully done and highly detailed.  All the Baugean engravings of American sailing warships that I've happened to see have at least one thing in common:  they don't show any hint of gunport lids.  Neither do most of the contemporary paintings of War of 1812 naval battles. 

The Revell 1/96 Constitution is based on a set of plans drawn by George Campbell on commission from the Smithsonian, back in the late fifties or early sixties. Mr. Campbell was one of the best in the business; his plans certainly deserve to be taken seriously.  He - quite correctly - used as one of his major sources of information the well-known "Isaac Hull Model" of the Constitution, now in the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.  The Smithsonian model has one-piece gunport lids (painted, if I remember correctly, yellow on the outsides and white on the insides).  The Revell kit mimics that model - the modern one in the Smithsonian.  But the old model in Salem doesn't have gunport lids.

The latter in itself isn't definitive.  The level of detail on that model is extremely crude; I can easily believe that the guy who made it wasn't up to the task of making miniature gunport hinges.  (I suspect that was Mr. Campbell's logic in adding the one-piece port lids to his plans.)  But it does look to me like the preponderance of the evidence favors ports with no hinged lids. 

The ports on the maindeck almost certainly had to be sealed with something when the guns were run in - especially in rough weather.  But what those removable lids looked like, how they were fastened into place, and what was done with them when the ports were opened I have no idea.

One-piece hinged portlids certainly were in use well before 1812, and I think I've seen contemporary pictures of two-piece ones, with semi-circular cutouts for the gun muzzles, from about that time as well.  If I were building a model of the Constitution in her War of 1812 configuration I think I'd be inclined to leave the lids off.  But I don't think anybody has an absolutely definitive answer to this one.