The Button Find

Walking fields can turn up some very interesting finds. On one of the properties, we turned up a 19th-century button - a gilt button that may have come from a Union Civil War (U.S.) uniform.

Now, that's a pretty exciting find! Well... if it turns out to be from an American Civil War uniform that is.

In looking at similar buttons, one that has struck me as being very similar, at least until we can clean up the find, is the Eagle button used from 1875-1902. The shape of the eagle is strikingly similar to the Buxton find. So, the jury is out on whether or not we have a Civil War find until we can clean up the backmark. If I'm right, and it's post-Civil War, that backmark will say something like Horstma/Phila on it.

We know that Buxton residents served in the Civil War, so it is entirely possible that this is an 1860s button. I think it would be surprising to find a post-Civil War Union button in Buxton. We'll just have to see.