Doctor Patterson to the Secretary of War.
Mint of the United States,
December 12, 1846.
To the Honorable
William L. Marcy,
Secretary of War.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th inst., regarding the execution of the Medal voted by Congress to General Taylor, and asking me to present "my views on the subject with such suggestions as may facilitate the object contemplated."
I comply cheerfully with this request, and recommend the following measures:
First. That a likeness of General Taylor be procured in profile. A good daguerreotype would answer very well.
Secondly. That a medallion of the head and bust be made in wax, on a plate of about four inches in diameter. Mr. Chapman, of New York, would be competent to make it.
Thirdly. This being done, the remainder of the work required for making the obverse die can be committed to Mr. Franklin Peale, the chief coiner of the Mint. A cast is made from the medallion in iron. This is used as a pattern, and a reduced copy of it is cut in steel, by the action of an apparatus called a portrait lathe, which we have in our possession here.
When the likeness is thus cut on the die, the legend is to be struck in, and will consist, I presume, of the name and title, Major-General Zachary Taylor.
For the reverse, I would recommend that no emblematic design should be attempted, but that it be composed of a wreath, enclosing the words: