Monsieur Rondin again

Military Images, Jul/Aug 1999 by Hammerson, Michael

More views of U.S.S. Kearsarge by a Cherbourg photographer.

In the January-February 1998 issue of this magazine, Norman C. Delaney described his detective work on the invented photo of the Alabama-Kearsarge battle marketed soon after the battle by Cherbourg photographer Francois Sebastien Rondin. While clearly -- to modern students, at least -- this is not a photograph, M. Rondin evidently managed to fool some of the public for some of the time with it; and, if there was no genuine photograph of the battle, what did it really matter?

Mr. Delaney reminded us, though, that Rondin had carried his camera on board Kearsarge soon after the fight, and taken at least six shots on and of Kearsarge and her crew. These were included on a composite carte-de-visite produced by Rondin, illustrated on p. 31 of Mr. Delaney's article and again reproduced at right. Owing to their tiny size on the original CDV, their detail was barely discernible.

A group of five cartes made by Rondin at that time recently came to light in England. One was of the faked battle scene, and another of a French warship. The other three were views from the composite CDV, and are illustrated here as the subject of this article. View No. 1, the lowest thumbnail picture in Rondin's composite CDV, has the selfexplanatory title, Le Kearsarge. Though a pleasing view of a ship almost as sleek as Alabama herself, and with her starboard side -- from which the battle was conducted -- visible, the outlines and detail of the victorious Union vessel have a distinctly blurred effect, and the clarity is not good enough to enable us to make out any of the damage inflicted by the Confederate's guns. Indeed, the faint outline of a land mass in the background is intriguing; looking out to sea from Cherbourg, the nearest visible land would be some 60 miles away, in England, but this land is clearly much closer. Possibly, therefore, Kearsarge was anchored too far from shore for a marketable photo to be taken of her, and so Rondin was obliged to take his photograph from the deck of another vessel anchored nearby, with the result that the inevitable slight movement affected the quality of the first picture.

The next View No.2, the thumbnail immediately above that of Kearsarge, is titled Equipage du Kearsarge, Poste de Combat (crew of Kearsarge, after the battle). This appears to be most of the ship's complement, officers and men, taken from the upper deck. Frowning -- or perhaps, at this stage, peering triumphantly -- over the starboard side are her two massive Il" rifled pivot guns which inflicted the fatal damage on her rival Alabama. Though lined up quite formally, presumably in an effort to ensure that every man is visible, the crew appear to be drawn up as far as possible "by divisions" in battle order, with the officers standing among them at their posts. At the front is Captain John Winslow himself, striking a pose which leaves us in no doubt as to the pride he must have been feeling at the time; the expressions on the faces of the rest of the crew, however, suggest that they had had enough of being photographed by this stage!

In the background, between the funnel and the left-hand rigging, the blurred profile of another masted ship can be made out. Might this be the vessel from which View No. 1 was taken?

View No. 3, the thumbnail photo to the right of View No. 2 on the composite CDV, shows two officers with the ten U.S. Marines recorded as having fought in the battle, but apparently excluded from the group portrait in View 2. The caption reads Canon de l'Avant du Kearsarge (Kearsarge's Forward gun). This is clearly not the famous 11" forward pivot gun but probably either the ship's 30or 20-pdr Rifle.

Paymaster J. Adams Smith's list of crew present at the duel with Alabama , drawn up on July 29, 1864, lists ten Marines: Orderly Sgt. Charles T. Young, Cpls. Henry Hobson and Austin Quinby (whose journal Delaney quoted as mentioning Rondin's visit), and Privates Roscoe G. Dolley, Patrick Flood, James Kerrigan, John McAleer, George A. Raymond, James Tucker and Isaac Thornton. Though these are presumably all in the photo, individuals cannot be identified, and only one man with NCO chevrons is discernible, the corporal just beyond the gun's muzzle.

The final View No. 4, though not of Kearsarge and not part of Rondin's composite, was clearly part of the same series and is of interest for showing us an example of the 1860s "arms race" in naval technology, which the Confederates were desperately trying to emulate with the Laird rams and Stonewall. View 4 shows the new French warship Magenta, which, together with her sister ship Solferino, were the first ironclad rams with two gun decks.

The lower left-hand view on the composite CDV, showing offcers and crew, was published on page 161, Vol. 1 of Touched by Fire, William C. Davis, ed., 1985.

The composite carte shows that Rondin took at least 6 views of Kearsarge. Moreover, three additional views by Rondin but not on the composite are well-known and have been published recently in Volume IV of Image of War, William C. Davis, ed., 1983. They show Winslow and his officers (p. 146), the 1-inch pivot gun (p. 147), and crewmen of the Kearsarge (p. 149). None of these figure on the composite CDV illustrated by Delaney, suggesting that there may be another composite CDV, showing these and -- to fill up the space -- others.