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How does one correct a primary source?

By fStop Fitzgerald | 30 August 2023

It happens. Not often, but it does occur. A trusted primary source of information has a verifiable glaring error.

How does one go about correcting it?

In writing my most recent column for Naval History about the USS Iowa (Battleship No. 4), I naturally searched for photographs. One of my favorite sites for pre-World War I imagery is the Library of Congress. Among their many collections are the glass images from the Detroit Photographic Company.

If you are not familiar with Detroit Photographic images, a quick Google search will get you to a myriad of photographs all from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The quality, because most are from large glass plates, is generally phenomenal, and the detail is exquisite. The subjects span the gamut of American history. Check out your old home town to see what it looked like during that period. Or railroads. Architecture. Shipping. Commerce. Farming. Literally anything you can think of, the photographers of the Detroit Photographic Company have it.

I found an interesting image for my search, LC-D4-13000 det 4a08494. It is titled, “League Island Navy Yard, U.S.S. Iowa and monitors, Philadelphia ca. 1900.”

I am always a sucker for monitor photographs and the thumbnail looked interesting with the bright white and buff colors of the battleship contrasting with drab gray of the monitors.

how to get gabapentin online But . . .

While the photograph did not disappoint. It is beautifully detailed, well composed, everything a photographer could want. Except the subject is wrong.

The battleship is not Iowa, but Indiana (Battleship No. 1).

This is not me saying so on a whim, but from basic knowledge.

The Iowa was built as the first American sea-going battleship with blue-water operations taking the fore. Three battleships (not including the second-class Texas and Maine, a long Navy procurement story) had been built before Iowa—the Indiana class, which included Indiana (Battleship No. 1), Massachusetts (Battleship No. 2), and Oregon (Battleship No. 3).

The primary difference between No. 1/2/3 and No. 4 was the Iowa had a forecastle deck that stretched back to the aft secondary 8-inch gun turrets. This added deck made the Iowa much more blue-water friendly than the very wet Indianas.

Some other physical notes of differences include the location of the forward secondary turrets farther aft, behind the fore funnel on the Iowa and also a deck lower at the same level with the fore main turret. Compare the drawings with the photograph.

Cropping in tight on the bow of the battleship shows only one row of deadlights, not two as one should see with the Iowa. This lone row is a hallmark of the Indiana class.

For the record: only one other class of U.S. pre-dreadnought battleships was constructed without a forecastle deck. It was the the Kearsarge class, which included Kearsarge (Battleship No. 5) and Kentucky (Battleship No. 6). However, neither of these could ever be confused with any other class because of the unique arrangement of their fore and aft turrets.

This is the aft turret of Kearsarge. Note the stacked main and secondary armament in circular turrets atop each other. The two could not rotate independently. Also note there is no similarity with the Indiana class or Iowa, for that matter.

Given that we now know the class of the so-called Iowa in the questionable photograph is actually an Indiana, which of the three—Indiana, Massachusetts, or Oregon—is it?

In their as-built condition, each ship carried a unique bow decoration (not called a figurehead, but a “bow decoration”).

This is the decoration on the mystery ship. While hard to “read,” the center escutcheon appears to feature a left-looking portrait.

This is Battleship No. 1’s bow decoration. Note the escutcheon contains a left-facing portrait.

Battleship No. 2’s decoration is very similar to Indiana‘s but features an eagle.

There is no mistaking Battleship No. 3 Oregon‘s shield for any other.

And to totally rule out Iowa from the discussion, here is Battleship No. 4’s decoration. One additional note in comparing the four bow views is the distance between the ornamentation and the bow torpedo tube. In the Indianas, the tube is almost part of the decoration, while Iowa‘s is far removed.

http://debashishbanerji.com/consciousnesswriting/spirituality-beyond-religions-integral-anthropology-and-world-religions/ Conclusion

Based on the bow ornament, the mystery ship can only reasonably be Indiana or Massachusetts as much of their ornamentation matches. Iowa and Oregon are impossibilities. While I could say that there is more relief shown in portrait of Indiana than the eagle of Massachusetts, and that the mystery photograph appears to show stark relief. That does not make it certain that the ship is Indiana.

I find certainty in the ship’s boats.

Note in both the mystery photograph and a verified photograph of Indiana, the ship’s boats are marked with a capital “I.” Perhaps this is what convinced the caption writer a century and a quarter ago.

To the point of all this…

I cannot be the first person to have made this identification in 125 years. Where are the others? Certainly someone let the Library of Congress know. Why is there not an annotation for this on the link to the images? I appreciate that archivists are bound to the information they are given and Detroit Photographic engraved this on the plate. But isn’t it also within an archivist’s purview as a historian to set the record straight? Especially when there is compelling evidence?

I will try to contact the Library of Congress and let them know about the issue. Don’t hold your breath, I’m not holding mine.

CSS Tennessee

By fStop Fitzgerald | 25 June 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Making Sausage: You Really Don’t Want to Know

This is an incomplete project. Although portions of it were published in the December 2009 issue of Naval History magazine, they were carefully cropped to eliminate errors that exist because of lack of documentation and skill on my part. My goal is to do the definitive model with accurate interior detail.

I am posting this to ping the greater world for more information so that I can properly detail the interior and fix the exterior, and perhaps rework the whole drawing. These renders are eight years old, so my skills have improved, but until I get more information this will sit on a back burner.

For the hull and casemate, I was only able to find these two drawings.

I do not have my sources readily at hand, but the profile and plan are obviously from a book. They are small and while apparently detailed, it is all lost in the small reproduction on poor absorbent paper. I believe the sections are from a different source. They are larger and cleaner, a big help.

The only way to approach a subject is to envision it in the simplest parts possible to keep your drawing time to a minimum. One fortunate aspect of ships (along with aircraft) is that you generally only have to do 50 percent of the project because of symmetry along the centerline. You simply copy, paste, reflect, and merge your work. With Tennessee, I created three basic pieces; the hull, hull armor, and casemate. Everything else is detail.

Using Illustrator, I created the lines for each. This is not a difficult process, but is somewhat challenging in trying to visualize your 2-dimensional work in 3-dimensions. Once those are complete, I import them into my 3-D software, Strata 3D, and proceed to extrude, lathe, hull, and whatever else needs to be done to get something that resembles Tennessee.

The hull sections, as noted, were clean and easy to reconstruct.

Once drawn, they were laid out in position along the length of the hull for “erecting” in the 3D program.

The failings of the hull—primarily because of my inexperience—is the plating. The interior, however, is another matter. Despite their size, the interior plan was really quite good for its level of detail. It allowed for proper positioning of the guns and their interaction. The funnel drops down through the gun deck to the engine room below. The capstan has an interesting position, but again, its linkages, unless below deck, are non-existent.

But details of the interior are sorely lacking. The gun handling fixtures are pretty much standard, so those details were easily added. But the real issue is the wheel stand and its workings. The drawings show that it was elevated above the gun deck and hung from the overhead, but how? How was the wheel linked to the rudder? What navigational equipment was associated with it? How did they use a compass surrounded by all that iron? Many questions, no answers. So the wheel is just suspended over the deck.

I added a drawing to illustrate the composite laminated construction of the casemate armor. It’s interesting to see how the laminations go together and how thick the armor was in relation to its backing.

I don’t normally share rejects. The faults in this are obvious, but it is here because it shows relationships and details, especially in the overhead grating, not visible in the others.The overhead view shows the layout of the fore (right) and aft 7-inch Brooke double-banded rifles on swivel mounts. These align with the three fore- and aft-most gunports. The four 6.4-inch Brooke double-banded rifles occupy the four broadside ports.

These are some other interior views as well as the overall fore and aft views.

Again, if you can help by pointing me toward drawings that will get this closer to what it should be, please let me know.