According to the New Orleans Daily Delta, May 23, 1847, the New Orleans lithographer Charles Risso "left on our table" a lithograph of Gen. Zachary Taylor, after a daguerreotype "taken at Buena Vista, by J. H. William Smith." This was three months after the battle of February 22-23. Taylor's outfit conforms to written descriptions of him. He dressed so plainly that often his own soldiers did not recognize him. Risso apparently added the background castle and palm trees which cannot be found in the high mountains around Buena Vista. The words "A Little More Grape Cap. Bragg!" derive from a popular anecdote about Taylor at the Battle of Buena Vista. As Mexican troops were about to break through the U.S. line, Taylor order Captain Braxton Bragg to fire more grapeshot from his artillery. Newspapers, printmakers, and writers repeated this story until it became his presidential campaign slogan. Bragg later denied that Taylor ever said this.
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Peter E. Palmquist and Thomas R. Kailbourn, Pioneer Photographers from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide: A Biographical Dictionary, 1839-1865 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005), p. 556; Martha A. Sandweiss, Rick Stewart, and Ben W. Huseman, Eyewitness to War: Prints and Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Fort Worth, Tex: Amon Carter Museum; Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), pp. 56, 172-173.
