AP: MYSTERY PHOTO UNSEEN FOR 30 YEARS MAY SHOW CIVIL WAR GUNSHIP

[Omaha Steve]

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BY RUSS BYNUM Feb 14, 1:19 PM EST

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) -- John Potter says he was browsing for antiques at a yard sale in south Georgia when he came across an old picture frame containing an enigmatic image - the dark silhouette of a person in a hat and coat standing to one side and a long, boxy structure looming in the background.

Potter says he didn't have the $175 the owner in Waycross wanted for the photograph, a hazy image further blurred by stains from water or chemicals. He also recalls finding a written clue to decoding the image on back of the frame. The inscription read: "CSS Georgia."


In this Jan. 29, 2015 file photo, a container ship passes a boat of divers working to recover the CSS Georgia located in the Savannah River next to Old Fort Jackson, in Savannah, Ga. A faded photograph last seen at a yard sale three decades ago could be a historical treasure, the only known image of the armored Confederate warship CSS Georgia before it was scuttled during the Civil War. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is spending $14 million to raise the sunken ironclad from the Savannah River, hopes to track down the original image that an antiques dealer photographed in the 1980s. Its last known whereabouts: the home of an elderly Waycross woman offering to sell the framed photo for $175. (AP Photo/Savannah Morning News, Steve Bisson)


"I knew exactly what it was," said Potter, a Savannah native now living in North Carolina. "I thought, `This belongs in a museum.'"

That was roughly 30 years ago. The only evidence of the mystery image are photographs snapped of the original to share with historian friends back in Savannah. Civil War experts say the image, if authenticated, would be the only known photograph of the CSS Georgia, an armored Confederate warship that was scuttled by its own crew 150 years ago as Gen. William T. Sherman's Union troops captured Savannah.

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