ds and relations of Director Patterson. The outsider in their midst was Chief Engrav

er James B. Longacre, successor to Gobrecht (who had died in 1844). A form

er copper-plate engraver, Longacre had been appointed through the political influence of South Car

olina Senator John C. Calhoun. When Longacre began work on the two new coins in early 1849, he had no one to assist him. Longacre wrote the following year that he had been warned by a Mint employee that one of the officers (undoubtedly Peale) planned to undermine the chief engraver's position by having the work of preparing designs and dies done outside Mint premises. Accordingly, when the gold coin bill became law, Longacre apprised Patterson that he was ready to begin work on the gold dollar. The Mint Director agreed, and after viewing a model of the head on the obverse, authorized Longacre to proceed with preparation of dies. According to Longacre, The engraving was unusually minute and required very close and incessant labor for several weeks. I made the original dies and hubs for making the working dies twice over, to secure their perfect adaptation to the coining machinery. I had a wish to execute this work single han