Aboard which Kearsarge?

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Library of Congress photo featured on the Museum of the US Navy's photostream:

The caption is given as being taken aboard the early 20th century battleship Kearsarge, but if that's not a Dahlgren XI-incher I'll eat the nearest hat. I suspect this is actually a postwar photo taken aboard the original Kearsarge. (Note the gun's name, "Winslow," on the carriage, for Captain John A. Winslow, skipper of the sloop Kearsarge in her victory over the CSS Alabama.)

 

[AndyHall]

You're right -- that's postwar image of a refitted/upgraded CW-era Kearsarge which was in service until 1894. Also, pretty sure the "new" Kearsarge of 1898 didn't have racks of cutlasses on the bulkhead to repel boarders.

 

[Talos]

That's definitely the original Kearsarge. There's a bunch of photos of her taken from about that time. Notice the hammock rails and the lack of pivot gun elevation as it's set up there.

 

[Ironclader]

Wow, look at the brasswork and other frippery on that Dahlgren! Pimp my smoothbore...

 

[AndyHall]

The image is the OP is in the LoC where it's identified as "the gun that sank the Alabama."

 

[Carronade]

Don't have a source, but I seem to recall cutlass drill persisting at least into the 1890s......Kearsarge was the only US battleship not named for a state and introduced the two-level turret, with a pair of 8-inchers above her 13" main guns. After WWI she was converted to a floating crane, eventually renamed Crane Ship No. 1

and served through WWII. I once spotted her in a photo of a shipyard on a WWII website.

 

[Michael W.]

Don't know when this photo was taken, but the CW period Kearsarge ran aground and was destroyed off the South American coast in 1894. If this pic is later than that, it is not the original.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

" Crane Ship No 1 " is a terrible way for a battleship to end a career. I mean ouch

 

[Talos]

Don't know when this photo was taken, but the CW period Kearsarge ran aground and was destroyed off the South American coast in 1894. If this pic is later than that, it is not the original.

It's the aft XI-inch pivot on the ship sometime in the 1870s after her major refit in that period that straightened the ship's sheer and really changed her topsides. It exactly matches the 1888 plans of Kearsarge reproduced in Canney's "The Old Steam Navy", even down to the placement of the boats and the ladder aft of the gun. By then, instead of smoothbore XI-inch pivots, she carried a pair converted into 8" rifles, but at the time this picture was taken, could easily still be carrying the smoothbores.

You can compare it to this 1864 picture of the aft pivot gun on the same ship. Note the bulwark height.

 

[USS ALASKA]

" Crane Ship No 1 " is a terrible way for a battleship to end a career. I mean ouch

Almost as bad as IX-22, which is how Oregon ended hers...

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Talos]

Don't forget IX-21, dear old USS Constitution, which was previously named USS Old Constitution to free up the name for a Lexigton-class battlecruiser during WWI. At least she regained her name later.