Daniel Morgan was born in New Jersey and moved to Virginia around age eighteen in 1754. He served as an officer in the Continental army, and later, as commander of the Virginia militia, aided in suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion, a major challenge to federal authority following the American Revolution. Between 1797 and 1799, he served as a member of the House of Representatives from Virginia. As colonel of the Eleventh Virginia Regiment, Morgan commanded a brigade of frontier riflemen who played an essential role at the Battle of Saratoga in New York. In John Trumbull’s painting The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga (1832.7), Morgan is the figure in white to the right of center. Although Trumbull's inscription on the back of this miniature says that he painted it in 1792 "from an original by Mr. C. W. Peale," the only known Peale portrait of Morgan dates from about 1794 and does not resemble this miniature. Perhaps Trumbull knew an earlier Peale portrait of Morgan that has yet to be located.