Ward Room (and dogs) of USS Miami

For Friday, we present this image that is the subject of a make your own caption contest on the Hampton Roads Naval Museum's Facebook page (winner gets an HRNM challenge coin and other SWAG!).  This is the ward room of the double ender gunboat USS Miami.  With what looks like two English Springer Spaniel water dogs on hand, the officer recently returned from what looks like a duck hunting expedition in the waters of North Carolina.  The vessel is most famous for dueling with the ironclad CSS Albermarle and barely escaped with her life.

Photograph technology being what was in the 1860s, exposure times were very long.  This typically resulted in very stiff looking subjects or at the very least, obviously posed shots.  This particular image, while posed,  is unusual in that its subjects are quite relaxed (with one officer looking down right annoyed and others trying to get glimpse of the week's news).