Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/241

KODGERS. 217 RODIN. Civil War he was jiUurd in command of the friyate Wabdsh aiul ivmliTed his lirst importaDt service at I'ort Koyal (Novi'iiiber, ISUl). Ill March, 1S(12. he eiiiiiiiiaiidi'd an expedition to iSaint Augustine and Saint JIary's River, and at the eajiture of Fort I'ulaslii had charge of the naval forces operating in the trendies. In the attack on Charleston | lSti3) he was fleet-captain, lie afterwards commanded the steam slooji Jio- ijKois and. the Frankli)i, and was on special ser- vice in Kiirope until 1S72, when he was made chief of the liureau of Docks ami Yards. He was superintendent of the Xaval Academy from 1874 to 1878. and held the same o0ice for some time in 1881. During his naval service he rose to the grade of rear-admiral (1S74). In 1881 he was retired. RODGERS, .John- (1771-1S3S). An American naval ollieer. born in Harford County, Jld. Ho entered the naval service in 1798 as a lieutenant, and was executive officer of the frigate Coiistclla- tion under Captain Truxtuu at the time the French frigate L'Insiirgcnte was captured olf Xevis, February 9, 1790. For his conduct in this action he was promoted to a captaincy. In Jlay, 1803, he commanded the John Adinns in the Mediterranean. In 1804 he commanded the Coixjrcss at Tripoli, in the squadron under Cap- tain Barron, whom he succeeded in 1805. After peace was declared, he sailed to Tunis, where he dictate'! terms of peace to the Bey. His action while on the President, with the British man-of- war. Little lielt (May 17, 1811), as the result of an attempt on his part to effect the rescue of an impressed American seaman, widened the breach then existing between Great Britain and the United States. In 1812, war having been declared by the United States, Connuandcr Rodgers was ]ilaced in command of a sipiadron consisting of the President, United f<l((trs, Conrtrcss. Honicl, and Argus, and meeting the British ship Bel- ridera. chased her, and a running fight followe<l — the first battle of the war — in which Rodgcrs was wounded by the bursting of a gun in his vessel, the President. On a cruise soon afterwards, he ca]itured a number of British merchantmen, and also the packet fSn-aUoic; which carried .$2(K»,000 in specie. In 1814 he was ordered to the com- mand of the new frigate (hierrierc. and rendered valuable aid in the defense of Baltimore. From 1815 to 1824 he was president of the Board of Naval Commissioners, and in 1823 was acting Secretary of the Navy. From 1824 to 1827 he had conunand of the squadron in the Mediterra- nean. After his return he again served as Navy Conniiissioner until 1837. RODGERS, John (1812-82). An American naval ollieer. son of John Rodgers (1771-18381, born in Harford County, Md. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1828, and saw active service in the Seminole War. During the years 1852-55 he commanded Government exploring expeditions in the North Pacific and Arctic oceans. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was ordered to the West, where for a time he superintended the building of ironclads. He then joined the Port Royal expedition and on May 15, 18C2, com- manded the Galena in the bombardment of Fort Darling. A few months later he was promoted to be captain and on June 17, 1863, while com- manding the monitor AVeehawken, he fought and captured the Confederate ironclad Atlanta, thus earning the rank of commodore. In 1870 Rod- gers was given coniiiiand of the Asiatic »qiiail- ron, and, while on the coast of Korea, was (ireil upon by two forts, which he prmnptly bonilmrded and eaplureil. From 1877 until his death he was superintendent of the I'liited Stales .Naval Ob- servatory at Washington, and in 1803 he wn* ehoseii one of the fifty active nieiiibcrs of the National Academy of Sciences. RODIN, r6'driN', Auouste (1840—). A French sculptor, the chief master of the modern Naturalistic School. He was born near the Pantheon in Paris of a poor family. His only general education was at a school in Beauvais, kept by an uncle. When fourteen year.* old he entered the famous Petite Ecole in Paris, where many of the most eminent French artist* have begun their special training. He failed to gain admission to the Ecole lies l!eaux-.rts, and studied, without much advantage, at the school of Barye in the .lardin des Plantes, supporting himself by assisting plaster and papier niacli6 workers. At the age of twenty-two he modeled an extraordinary head, called the "Broken Nose," which is still one of the most powerful and char- acteristic of his works. In 1803 Kodin entered the service of Carrier-Bellpuse. art dirwtor of the S^vres manufactory, and remained with him until th<' beginning of the Franco-German War. During the siege of Paris be served in the National (iuard, and after the war he went to Brussels, where he was extensively emplo.yed in arcliitectural decoration, his most important works there being two large groups for the Exchange. Returning to Brussels after a short visit to Italy in 1875, where he was profoumlly impressed by the works of Donatello and Michelangelo, he made an extraordinary statue, the "-^R'^ of Bronze," which he took with him to Paris in 1877, and exhibited in the Salon of that year. It was received mosfenthusiastically by the younger sculptors, but condemned by the more conserva- tive on account of its radical (pialities. Before the exhibition of 1878 Rodin modeled some 9U- perl) decorative heads for the Trocad^ro Palace. This work and a bust of "Saint John," which Rodin exbibite<l in 1870, won for him the patron- age and warm friendship of Turipiet, Under- Secretary of Fine Arts, through whose in- strumentalitv the "Age of Bronze" was bought for the State, and was cast in bronze and placed in the Luxembourg gardens. Some of the vases which Rodin had designed for Carrier-Belleuse were placed in the S&vres Museum. In 1880 Rodin completed his statue of "Saint John Preaching." i)erhaps the most powerfully real- istic work of modern times, which was bought for the Luxembourg gallery. In the same vear Turquet secured for him a commission for a bronze door for the Musf-e des rts Decoratifs. This great work, which was ex- hibited in 1884 (in 1002 still unfinished), is eighteen feet high and twelve feet wide and is covered with figures suggested by Dante's Infenio. whence its name, "La porte de Tcnfer. Next iii importance among his works is the monument t.> the six "Bourgeois de Calais." who. in 134(, of- fered themselves as a sacrifice to appease th<^ wrath of Edward HI. of England, a work for which he received the comniission in 1SS3. In its intense naturalism and dramatic energ)-, thu