En Barbette

A heavy banded gun on a center-pintle barbette carriage, high on its traverse — one man up on the carriage, another on the platform below, round shot ranged at the foot of the mound. An albumen print from the April 1865 album page; its mount is pencilled with a plate number in the 4380s.

That number matters more than it looks: the negatives staged for this series stop in the 3470s, so this print — like two of its neighbors on the album page — preserves a photograph whose glass was never part of the staged material. For these frames the little album print is not a duplicate; it is the only copy on hand.