Daguerreotype Portrait of a Smiling Captain William H. Chapman and Captain Moses Merrill of the 5th U.S. Infantry Regiment During the Mexican-American War Believed to Have Been Taken in Veracruz, Mexico (1847)

Daguerreotype portrait of a smiling Captain William H. Chapman (left) and Captain Moses Merrill of the 5th U.S. Infantry Regiment during the Mexican-American War believed to have been taken in Veracruz, Mexico, April 1847. Merrill was killed in the 1847 Battle of Molino del Rey and Chapman went on to fight in the Civil War. Attributed to Charles J.C. Betts. One of the earliest surviving photograph of a smiling person.

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