Chooeubhaokhaossian the Great's Temple of History

Carte de visite portrait of a group of African American child chimney sweeps posing with their tools, 1870. By photographer Jerome Nelson Wilson of Savannah, Georgia.

Source: New York Public Library.

Carte de visite portrait of an American diplomat to Liberia only identified as Chester, c. 1870. By photographer D. C. Burnite of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Source: New York Public Library.

Carte de visite portrait of an African American man identified as Dr. Crumwell, c. 1870. By Moses P. Rice.

Source: New York Public Library.

Portrait of five members of a survey expedition eating around a campfire, location unknown, 1870. They are identified as (from left to right): James Stevenson, Charles Turnbull, Henry Elliot, Branson, and cook "Potato John." By William Henry Jackson. Animated stereoscopic photographs.

A group of Ku Klux Klansmen posing with a human skull and crossbones in Watertown, New York, c. 1870. By Hart.

Source.

Photograph said to show Canadian militiamen posing with the body of a Fenian Brotherhood militant killed during the Battle of Eccles Hill, Quebec, May 25, 1870. Probably a staged scene.

Source.

Hand-colored tintype portrait of two men drinking, c. 1870.

Source.

Portrait of a photographer posing with a stereoscopic camera in a photography studio, c. 1870.

Photographs said to show lines of German skirmishers advancing towards a French position at La Moncelle during the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870. A few fascinating details that are discernible in the first photograph is the trail of what looks like blood flowing from a spot next to the doorway of the house in the foreground, the bullet holes visible in the same house, and the columns of German soldiers marching down the road in the distance. A large amount of smoke can be seen rising in the distance in all of the photographs.

If these photographs were real, the hardest thing to explain would be the position of the photographer as he would have been in an extremely exposed position. There doesn't seem to be any blurring in the photos caused by movement of the soldiers which was a common trait in photos of the era and could be a sign that the images are posed. Cameras with fast exposure times which would minimize any blurring existed at the time but their use was not very widespread. At the moment I think they are from some sort of elaborate recreation that was made to sell postcards or else some other attempt to document the conflict by photographing a reenactment.

A longer write-up.

Two views of a Léon Gambetta balloon named Neptune being prepared to launch in Montmartre, Paris, in order to float mail over German lines during the Siege of Paris, 1870. By Nadar.

Source 1.

Source 2.