Patrick T. Conley’s article of Aug. 9 on “Rhode Island’s lost ships” perpetuates a misperception about the USS Constellation in Baltimore Harbor. The Constellation in Maryland (and formerly in Rhode Island) is not the more famous sister ship of the USS Constitution. Rather, it is a different ship entirely. Quoting www.baltimore.to/Constellation/index.html. — “The last Civil War vessel afloat, [Baltimore’s] USS Constellation, was built in 1854 and is . . . a sloop-of-war, or corvette, and the second United States Naval ship to carry this famous name.”

This is repeated on the Constellation’s own Web site, http://www.constellation.org/.

MICHAEL TOLLEFSON

Middletown