A raw recruit, white or black, over 18 years of age was given the rank of landsman. Sixty-nine of those greenhorns were on Constellation's muster roll in 1863, and they performed the dirtiest, heaviest and most menial shipboard tasks and endured the harassment of their mates. With at least three years' experience, or upon re-enlisting, a landsman could be promoted to ordinary seaman. The skill and knowledge required of an ordinary seaman included handling and splicing ropes and lines and working aloft on the lower mast stages and yards. When fully rigged, a ship of Constellation's size had some five miles of rigging, so ordinary seamen had quite a bit to learn. Constellation's March 1863 roles listed 82 men of that rank. Seaman, the next step up, required the sailor to have at least six years' experience and instinctively 'know all the ropes' by name and use. Fifty-seven seamen were on Constellation in the spring of 1863.

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The captain rated or promoted the most reliable and experienced seaman as petty officers to occupy positions of intermediate authority, and he relied on them for advice on the safety, operation and maintenance of the ship. The skipper also rated petty officers based on previously acquired skills or training. Constellation had 59 petty officers to help supervise the ship's 283 enlisted crew members. The leading petty officers were the Navy equivalent to Army and Marine Corps sergeants. The master-at-arms, the highest-ranking, was responsible for discipline. The yeoman was in charge of storing and issuing the material for ship maintenance and operation and keeping the account books of the various departments. Leading petty officers known as mates assisted the master, boatswain, gunner, sail maker and carpenter. Others known as stewards could serve on the staffs of the paymaster and surgeon.

Those with the lesser petty officer ratings, equal to corporals, saw duty as quartermasters, who steered the ship and assisted with navigation and signaling; quarter gunners, who helped maintain the cannons and trained the gun crews; and armorers, who took care of the cutlasses, pikes, battle-axes, pistols and shoulder weapons that constituted the ship's cache of small arms. When a ship went to battle stations, every gun had at least one petty officer acting as its gun captain.

Lesser petty officers could also be coopers and painters in the carpenter's department, cooks and cabin and wardroom stewards, and the master-at-arms' corporals, or assistants. The lower grade petty officers of the boatswain's department supervised the sailing deck. They were known as captains of the forecastle, the forward area of the spar, or top, deck; the tops, or masts; the afterguard, or aft area of the ship; and the hold.

Moses A. Safford, a Kittery, Maine, attorney when the war began, accepted an appointment as one of Constellation's yeomen on December 26, 1861. Safford's 1862–65 shipboard diary provides a petty officer's perspective on life aboard a Union man-of-war.

John Glenn of Troy, N.Y., who was said to have once been a prizefighter, was appointed Constellation's master-at-arms in November 1861. Yeoman Safford was Glenn's messmate and described him as a 'very jolly, good-natured man although he has a reputation of having been `on his muscle," due to his tendency to resort to brute strength to enforce discipline and the rules of the ship.

Most Navy ships had a contingent of Marines aboard, who functioned as shipboard infantry during a fight. They helped the captain maintain order, assisted in repelling enemy boarders, climbed into the rigging to act as sharpshooters and spearheaded boarding parties against enemy vessels and landing parties ashore. Like the other branches of service, the Marine Corps expanded during the Civil War, growing from 1,800 officers and men to approximately 4,100. Constellation's records indicate that 45 men served in the Marine Guard from 1862 to 1865 and were commanded by 2nd (later 1st) Lt. Robert O'Neil Ford. In descending order of rank, his detachment included one lieutenant, one orderly sergeant, one sergeant, three corporals, 36 privates and three musicians.

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