Bidspirit auction | MAYER, DANIEL. Photograph of Mayer

MAYER, DANIEL. Photograph of Mayer posed with sword in his GAR state commander uniform. With distinctive epaulettes. He wears GAR state commander badge and a second badge. Signed below: “Yours truly/ D. Mayer.” Mounted in large frame. * WITH: Photograph of Mayer in old age, framed along with two additional photographs: His wife, and his daughter. Three photographs, mounted together in a single frame. Together, two frames.  PHOTOGRAPHS ARE OF UNCOMMON SIZE AND EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY. Soldier, lawyer, politician, diplomat and surgeon, Daniel Mayer (1837-1910) of the Fifth West Virginia Infantry, served from August 27, 1861 to November 9, 1864. His regiment saw action in West Virginia and Virginia. He was the first Jew to be elected to the West Virginia legislature. He befriended William McKinley, then a young officer of the 23rd Ohio Infantry while in West Virginia. When President, McKinley appointed Mayer to be Ambassador to Argentina and Theodore Roosevelt subsequently extended the appointment. Mayer became the state commander of the West Virginia Grand Army of the Republic. See Adam D. Mendelsohn, Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army (2022) p. 35 and 148.