Mystery Naval Officer

[AndyHall]

I recently came across this image, apparently a hand-tinted daguerreotype, of a naval officer from before the Civil War. The image was identified, but I'm doubtful of that identification. Can anyone make a good guess of the date of the image based on the uniform, photographic techniques, etc.?

 

[noman]

What was the name given?

 

[AndyHall]

I'd prefer to withhold the name for now, so as not to bias the estimates of the date of the image.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

hmm.... looks like service dress, with the cuff buttons indicating a master or equivalent, uniform regs of 1852. Could perhaps be a surgeon. The diagnostic factors I'm looking at are the cuff buttons and the double-breasted coat buttons.

I haven't seen this image before.

Still poking around...

Maybe a warrant officer of some type? Gunner, carpenter, etc.? Uniforms aren't my usual line.

That looks like it could be his headgear to his left (right side of image) but in no way clear enough to get a good look at it.

I'm a little puzzled by the number of cuff buttons. The regs I've looked through so far generally specify three, rather than four, large-size buttons... but whoever tinted it may have accidentally enlarged one of the smaller-size buttons on each cuff?

 

[Mike Serpa]

Looks like a combination of Vin Diesel and Dan Rather! He's not Walke or Mark would have ID'd him. I couldn't even find this photo with a google search.

 

[chubachus]

Have been meaning to read all of this great guide to dating daguerreotypes/ambrotypes/tintypes called "Fixed in Time" (which was recommended by Garry Adelman IIRC) found here: http://phsneblog.wordpress.com/2014...w-and-helpful-guide-to-dating-daguerreotypes/

In skipping to the mat section, unfortunately it looks like that type of plain oval mat seems to have been in use for a wide range of dates from around 1840 to 1858.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

I trust there will be a follow-up at some point? *curious*

 

[AndyHall]

The officer is purported to be Edwin Ward Moore (1810-65), a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant who commanded the Texas Navy from 1839 to 1843. He did not hold any active-duty commission after 1843, but did spend years fighting unsuccessfully to be re-instated in the U.S. Navy at his Texas rank of Post Captain/Commodore.

There are very few images of Moore. This one (or a variant of it) is the best known:

In addition, there are two images reputed to be of Moore in civilian clothes, from an auction house listing:

c. 1850:

c. 1861:

I'm honestly not sure whether either of these is actually Moore.

I do believe strongly that the image in the original post is NOT Moore. It doesn't look like him, and the man appears to me to be too young to be the age Moore would necessarily have been when that image would have been taken -- sometime after 1845, at the earliest -- regardless of the uniform.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

I agree, I would doubt that the photo in the OP is Moore, if for no other reason than it seems extremely doubtful he'd have himself photographed in a junior officer's uniform if he were trying to obtain a captain's rank!

 

[AndyHall]

Moore and several other officers kept hounding the U.S. Congress after the annexation of Texas to be commissioned into the U.S. Navy at their Republic of Texas ranks, which was Never. Going. to. Happen. In the end they received five years' worth of half pay (i.e., non-active duty pay), and had to be content with that.

Moore did come back to Texas in 1860-61 to superintend the construction of the old Customs House here, which he rushed through to completion before secession, and which subsequently became a symbol of Federal authority in Galveston and the state generally.