In this portrait, Hamilton is shown wearing the uniform of a general in the Continental Army.

Trumbull spent the years 1794 to 1804 in England as a member of the Jay Treaty Commission. Upon his return to America he found portraits of Hamilton in great demand and, using his own 1792 bust-length portrait and the bust of Ceracchi as models, created this, his second type of Hamilton portrait. Theodore Sizer, Trumbull's biographer, has catalogued eight of this second type.

The subject was the son of William Hallett from Dorsetshire, England, who was awarded the patent for the area around Hallett's Cove (now Astoria), Long Island, and settled there about 1655. This portrait was painted in New York, and was based on a mezzotint by John Smith (1696) after Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait of John Cecil, Earl of Exeter. The only significant change made by the New York limner was the inclusion of the ship and nautical instruments, evidently appropriate for Hallett.

Charles U. Combes (or Combs) served as sergeant in the First New York Mounted Rifles of the Seventh New York Cavalry during the Civil War, and afterward joined the New York City Police Department.

This portrait is a 19th-century copy after the 16th-century copy by Christofano dell' Altissimo in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Altissimo, who had been a student of Pontormo and Bronzino, was commissioned by Duke Cosimo I in 1552 to paint copies of the portraits of notable men in the collection of Paul Jose, bishop of Nocera. He worked on this project until 1565, completing some 280 copies.

Coleman, who has been described as the most capable Federalist journalist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was born in Boston and studied and practiced law in Greenfield, Mass., before going to New York around 1796. For a brief period he was the law partner of Aaron Burr, and in 1801 he was made editor and proprietor of the New York "Evening Post" by Alexander Hamilton and other prominent Federalists, an influential post which he held until his death.

Ann Caroline Old was the daughter of James Old (1730-1809) and Margaret (Davies) Old of Quitapahilla Forge, near Lebanon, Pennsylvania. She married Robert Coleman, who worked for her father, on October 4, 1773, at Reading Furnace, Chester County, Pennsylvania. There are two versions of Eichholtz's portrait of Mrs. Coleman, both painted about 1815, one belonging to the Society and one in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It is not known which is the original.

Robert Coleman was born in Ireland and immigrated to Philadelphia in 1764. He served in the Pennsylvania state legislature in 1783 and was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1790. Eichholtz is known to have painted at least four portraits of Coleman ca. 1812 and ca. 1815. There is another version of the Society's portrait of ca. 1815, which belongs to National Gallery of Art in Washington. It is not known which of these two is the original.

George Coggeshall was the son of William and Eunice (Mallett) Coggeshall. His father was a shipmaster, and young George followed him to sea as a cabin boy in 1799 on a voyage to Cadiz. He was given his first command in 1809 and was the captain of two privateers in the War of 1812. After the war Coggeshall became a captain of merchant vessels. This is one of Daniel Huntington's earliest portraits. He would later emerge as a leader in the field of American portraiture.