SAVANNAH, Ga. — For three decades, the stained and blurry photograph presented a great mystery to Civil War historians.

It was a picture taken of another photo in a peeling, gilded frame. In the foreground stood a man, his back to the camera, wearing a coat and hat. In the center, visible amid stains and apparent water damage, was a ship.

That’s not the CSS Georgia in the frame, just a 2-foot model, according to the man who claims credit for the historic hoax.

Did this picture show the only known photograph of the ironclad Confederate warship the CSS Georgia?

Confederate sailors sunk their ship in late 1864 as Union troops captured Savannah. No blueprints survived and period illustrations varied in details. The photo would confirm details of the Georgia’s design, if only it could be authenticated. Records show John Potter donated a copy of the picture of the photo to the Georgia Historical Society in 1986.

As the Army Corps of Engineers embarked this year on a $14 million project to raise the Georgia’s wreckage from the river, archaeologists publicized the image, hoping to track down the original photo.

Robert Holcombe, former curator of the National Civil War Naval Museum, told the AP in February that he believed it was real. “Most people seem to think so,” he said. “Or else it’s an awfully good fake.”

Now the man who took that photo of the photo all those years ago says he wants to clear the record: It is a fake.

PICTURE-PERFECT HOAX

Here was the story John Potter told 30 years ago:

The Savannah native was at a yard sale when he found the photo in an antique frame. Inscribed on the back of the frame was “CSS Georgia.” He couldn’t afford it, so he took a photo and mailed it to historical groups in Savannah.

Here is his new story, which he told only to The Associated Press:

When he was a teenager in Savannah, Potter, his brother Jeffrey and a friend shot a short 8mm movie about the CSS Georgia. They built a 2-foot model.

At some point, Potter decided to test whether he had the skills to become a Hollywood special effects artist.

Potter’s younger brother put on a coat and straw hat and went out to a marsh with a cane pole and Potter took a photo. He took another photo of the model. He glued the boat’s image onto the photo of his brother, then used dirt and glue to “age” the photo.

Potter sent the photo to historical groups, setting off a sporadic search for a CSS Georgia photo that he now says never existed.

TRUTH COMES IN FOCUS

The gilded frame that once held the disputed photo now holds a portrait of Potter’s deceased pug, Puggy Van Dug.

Potter, 50, lives alone in the North Carolina mountains. He once owned a Savannah antiques store and provided props for movies filming in the area. He had a stint as a maintenance man for a lighthouse and museum on Tybee Island. He spent nights drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon at Huc-a-Poos, where a mock police mug shot of him hangs with the words: “Tybee Record – 77 PBRs in one night.”

After their father died in 2011, Potter and his brother Jeffrey moved to North Carolina.

Last month, Jeffrey, the only person who shared the secret, killed himself at age 48.

Potter said he’d forgotten about the photo and had no idea the fuss it had caused until he saw it on the Army Corps website.

After his brother’s death, he contacted AP to come clean.

“I’m not in good health. I didn’t want to drop dead and carry that to my grave,” said Potter, adding he never profited from his hoax.

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