We all know of Rondin's supposed photos of the battle off Cherbourg, which were very obviously non-existant. At least we know of the exact date and the photographer's name, in the case of his photographs of the KEARSARGE officers and crew. Since coming upon evidence of the names of the actual photographers for several other Civil War Naval photographs, as well as, in at least two cases, the exact dates these were taken, I am now trying to locate other pieces of evidence for as many of the CW Naval photographs that I can locate. Just yesterday I found mention, in the three volumed set of the DU PONT LETTERS, about how many photographs were taken of Du Pont and his staff and crew of the USS WABASH, by photographer Henry P. Moore. There is even mention of the fact that Du Pont ordered about a hundred copies of one particular photograph from Moore. I am now trying to channel all this collected data, from documented sources, relating to the Naval photographs of the Civil War, so that I will at least have a database of Civil War Naval photographs which will include the names of the photographers, dates the photos were taken, as well as exact place shown in each photo. The Andrew J. Russell photo album also includes two photos of the USS MENDOTA, and Russell even provides the exact date these photos were taken. I am certain that if I can also locate the registers and journals kept by these Civil War photographers, I will be able to find further evidence attaching names, dates and places for a lot of the Naval photographs we know of. As well, I would also like to correct some of the inaccurate captions ascribed to some Naval photographs. A perfect example is a very well known photograph of a Sassacus class double ended gunboat which is often incorrectly named as the USS MENDOTA, but which is, in fact, the USS AGAWAM. There is another photo, properly named as the USS MENDOTA, and which shows that that vessel had a steam whistle attached to her funnel. The USS AGAWAM did not have such a steam whistle, so it is easy to differentiate between the two vessels. In several of the photos of the officers and crew of the USS MENDOTA, the steam whistle can be clearly seen, next to the funnel, in the background.
I had also previously assumed that the many well known photographs of the USS HUNCHBACK had also been taken by Andrew J. Russell, since Russell was operating along the James River. However, I recently found mention that these photos (of the HUNCHBACK) were, in fact, the work of another photographer, Egbert Guy Fowx. Fowx was confirmed to have taken at least one, and probably all the other, photographs aboard the USS LEHIGH.
There are a number of very well researched studies of some of these Civil War photographers, and, hopefully, more such works will be published in the future. At least we know that Brady was not responsible for every one of these photographs.