Shop sewing buttons online at JOANN. Find great button selections, including novelty sewing buttons and sewing buttons in a variety of styles and types. Page 1 of 3 - US Military Uniform Buttons Interesting Facts - posted in MISCELLANEOUS / OTHER: There are many interesting facts about US military uniform buttons. Here are some of those - with examples, all buttons pictured are from my collection. I am using many references to Albert’s button book, probably the best resource for US military uniform buttons.
There are many interesting facts about US military uniform buttons. Here are some of those - with examples, all buttons pictured are from my collection.I am using many references to Albert’s button book, probably the best resource for US military uniform buttons.
His book, the first book listed below, is a must for US military button collectors, as well as various other references on buttons and backmarks.Books in my library on US Military buttons include:. Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H. Albert.
Civil War Collector’s Guide to Albert’s Button Book, by Daniel J. Binder. Uniform Buttons of the United States 1776-1865, by Warren K. Tice. North Carolina Civil War Buttons, by C.
Terry Teff. Military Buttons of the Gulf Coast 1711-1830, by Dan Jenkins. American Military Button Makers and Dealers; Their Backmarks & Dates, by William F.
McGuinn and Bruce S. Bazelon. Dating Buttons; A Chronology of Button Types, Makers Retailers & Their Backmarks, by Warren K. Tice. Military Buttons of the American Revolution, by Don Troiani. Guides to Button Prices & Detecting Fake or Repro Buttons, by Warren K.
Tice. Maritime and Aviation; Transportation Uniform Buttons Vol.3, by Don Van Court. Also, various articles written by Daniel J. Binder in the magazine North South Trader’s Civil WarRead on. The design of US Navy Officer’s buttons prior to WWII, in use from 1852 until 1941, was an eagle facing left standing on a horizontal anchor. On May 14, 1941 the Navy ordered that the head of the eagle face its right side.
“The shift of the eagle's aspect to right-facing from left-facing is logical from the perspective of heraldic tradition, since the right side (dexter) is the honor side of the shield and the left side (sinester) indicates dishonor or illegitimacy.”(source: )Of the buttons in the picture, those on the left are Civil War-era, those on the right are from a WWII US Navy uniform (my father-in-law’s). There were two primary types of US Navy buttons worn during the Civil War. They are listed in Albert’s book as NA112 & NA113. They are both “an eagle resting on a horizontal anchor, three cannon balls below, with 13 stars encircling, on a lined field”. The difference is that the more common one during the Civil War, the NA112, had the upper fluke of the anchor behind the left wing, whereas the NA113 had the upper fluke of the anchor in front of the left wing. These types were used right up through WWII, although the NA112 type became much less common after the Civil War.(source: Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H. Albert)Although both of the buttons pictured below were made by the same manufacturer, D.
Evans & Co., there is this difference between the flukes of the anchor, as well as other die variations in the eagle, stars, and even button size. There are many different backmarks for US Navy buttons dating from the 1850’s and 1860’s, as well as many post-Civil War backmarks. There were many different manufacturers, and different backmarks made by the same manufacturers due to different dies or special backmarks for a customer (with their name or company). Many were American manufacturers; there were also several British and a few French manufacturers as well.
Note that it is very important in dating buttons to analyze the backmark. I listed some good reference books in the first post. See picture for some Civil War-era examples. Prior to the 1830’s, US Navy buttons were of a one-piece design, and were flat or slightly convex. They were beautiful buttons, most had the familiar eagle & anchor, some of the earlier ones had only an anchor.
Some were American made, but there were many beautiful British made buttons too. (source: Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H.
Albert)The ones pictured are from my collection (with Albert’s reference number under); with a close-up of one of my favorites (it was hard to pick just one). The US Coast Guard was created in 1915. As quoted on the US Coast Guard website source listed below, “The service received its present name in 1915 under an act of Congress that merged the Revenue Cutter Service with the U. Life-Saving Service, thereby providing the nation with a single maritime service dedicated to saving life at sea and enforcing the nation's maritime laws. The Coast Guard began maintaining the country's aids to maritime navigation, including lighthouses, when President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the transfer of the Lighthouse Service to the Coast Guard in 1939.
In 1946 Congress permanently transferred the Commerce Department's Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation to the Coast Guard, thereby placing merchant marine licensing and merchant vessel safety under its purview.” (sources: Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H. Albert)Pictured are buttons from the various services that eventually became part of the US Coast Guard. Note too how the eagle on the Coast Guard buttons (at the bottom) changed from facing left to facing right at the same time as with the US Navy in 1941.
The lettered eagle buttons in the US Army had their counterparts in the Confederate States Army, they simply had the letter (no eagle). The eagle appeared on many of the general staff buttons, but not on the Confederate general service nor the letter buttons.
(source: Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H. Albert)Pictured below are some examples of Union (left column) and Confederate buttons (right column).Rows:General StaffGeneral ServiceInfantryArtilleryCavalry.
Ever see a dug Civil War button so badly corroded that you couldn’t even read the backmark? Ever wonder what a backmark might look like from the inside? Pictured below is the back of a button dug near Antietam, so badly corroded that the face of the button disintegrated when it was dug, exposing the inside of the back that was protected all those years. It exposed a very rare “Goldsboro Rifles” backmark known to exist on a rare North Carolina button. According to Tice, “Scovill produced this rare backmark for the “Goldsboro Rifles,” founded at the end of 1859 in response to John Brown’s unsuccessful Harpers Ferry, Virginia raid.” (source: Uniform Buttons of the United States 1776-1865, by Warren K. Demonstrated below are two Civil War era non-dug North Carolina buttons.
The one on the left is a 3-piece “staff” button, a button made from three main parts – the front, the back, and a ring, or rim, connecting the front to the back. The other button is referred to as a 2-piece button, the back, and the front which is made so that it wraps around the outer edges of the back.These two buttons also demonstrate other manufacturing differences, with a British-made button on the left, and a Confederate “local” on the right. A Confederate “local” button refers to one produced within the Confederacy before or during the war, and is often of much lower quality, whereas there were some very beautiful Southern buttons made by the British worn during the Civil War.
There were many military schools, both during and after the Civil War, that had their own distinctive uniform buttons. There are some very desirable Southern Civil War era school buttons. During the Civil War, some of the cadets and professors from some of these military schools picked up arms and fought alongside the Union or Confederate soldiers during battle. Shown below are rare buttons from two North Carolina military schools during the Civil War. (source: Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H.
Army changed to the Great Seal button in 1902, which made obsolete all of the state buttons, all the separate army organizations, all the separate letter eagle buttons, even separate buttons for general staff. “One style for all arms and all grades, private to Lt. The only exception is the Engineer Corps, who are to retain their present design. Bronze for service and gilt for dress.
The design is a copy of the great seal of the U.S.” (source: Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H. For the Marines, as quoted in Albert’s book: “We find the Navy buttons prescribed for the Marine Corps uniforms as late as May 15, 1821. However, an order dated August 3, 1821, prescribes Marine buttons for officers. The device is practically the same as is in use today:An eagle with outspread wings holding a loop of anchor cable in his beak, grasping the ring and stock of a slanting fouled anchor with his talons. Thirteen stars in an arc above, the entire device is on a lined field with a raised border.”(source: Record Of American Uniform And Historical Buttons, by Alphaeus H.
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