Buttons?

[Enfilade]

Gentlemen, I wish to ask what type buttons are on this jacket? Can anyone tell me? Can you also tell by the buttons where this coat was made?

Mark Berrier
North State Rifles

http://www.northstatrifles.com

[ewtaylor]

Re: Buttons?

Good question. I tried to blow them up with my old photo inhancer program, but it didnt help. They do not appear to be state or CS issued. The middle button appears to be dark, as if made of wood or gutta percha. The also appear to be "dished". I posted a thread awhile back about a wounded CS Vet who was manufactoring buttons for soldiers because he said there was a lack of them. However he was making bone and wood buttons. Maybe these are not brass or maybe they are a civie brass style.
excellent photo,
everett taylor

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Buttons?

Hallo!

I lose resolution, so I cannot get the best look.
I suspect "dished" wooden buttons, the one in the middle being just a darker wood.

Curt

[Prodical Reb]

Re: Buttons?

Mark,
IMHO they look like generic CS wooden buttons just like the ones MBS make/market. See the link: http://missouribootandshoe.tripod.com/id13.html

The Historical documentation is there as well. They even have a few pics!

[Enfilade]

Re: Buttons?

The buttons seem odd to me. But that's really not the best thing about this image. Can you guess the type jacket? NO- it's NOT a Type 2.

Here is some history on this soldier. From "Portraits In Conflict" by Richard McCaslin,....page 57;

"To complete the organization of some North Carolina commands, units from other states were sometimes included. Wharton J. Green was given the authority to raise a regiment in 1861, but this proved impossible. He had to settle for a commission as a lieutenant colonel in command of eight companies, three of which were not from North Carolina, collectively known as the 2d Battallion, North Carolina Infantry.

Green's troops were captured on Roanoke Island in February 1862, then exchanged and returned to duty, without Green, by the fall of that year. Assigned to Brig. Gen. Junius Daniel's brigade, they fought at New Bern and Washington, NC in early 1863, then joined the Army of Northern Virginia. At Gettysburg, two thirds of the battalion were killed or wounded.

Among those left at Gettysburg as prisoners was Pvt. J. Ransom Seay(pictured), a Georgian in Company D of the 2d Battalion. A native of Dawson County, Seay enlisted at the age of twenty-three in the Cherokee Georgia Mountaineers in July 1861. They had no formal assignment at Richmond in September 1861, so a portion, including Seay, became Company D. They suffered the indignity of capture at Roanoke Island, but returned to the 2d Battalion. In 1863 Seay was sent to Fort McHenry, then to Fort Delaware, whence he was released in June 1865(more than a year after his company joined the 21st Georgia Infantry). This portrait was made at Dawsonville in 1861."

He died on June 10, 1877, at Benton, Geogia, at the age of 38.


Mark Berrier
North state Rifles

http://www.northstaterifles.com

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: Buttons?

Hello


I think the jacket might be a commutation, but that is just a guess. The buttons appear to me to be wood confederate issue buttons.


Andrew Kasmar

[JordanRicketts]

Re: Buttons?

Looks kind of like rubber to me. The button attached looks really similar...

Jordan Ricketts

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Buttons?

Hallo!

I would not think that black gutta percha/thermoplastic type buttons would appear so light, nor would the "dished" center be as pronounced.

Curt

[JordanRicketts]

Re: Buttons?

Hallo!

I would not think that black gutta percha/thermoplastic type buttons would appear so light, nor would the "dished" center be as pronounced.

Curt

When light hits a gloss surface, it looks light when an image is taken... And that white center is more then likely thread...

The shape looks dead nuts on, to me...

Think about it???

Jordan Ricketts

[ewtaylor]

Re: Buttons?

Hallo!

I would not think that black gutta percha/thermoplastic type buttons would appear so light, nor would the "dished" center be as pronounced.

Curt

Actually, while perusing thru the Ebay mega site, I came upon some gutta percha (hard rubber) buttons for sale. It was a mixed variety. One of those buttons was a dished button that looked exactly like the wooden buttons we see on uniform examples today. Perhaps the wooden buttons were a cheap knockoff for the gutta percha buttons of the day. Also, some of them were not so black, but almost brownish in color.
everett taylor

[Prodical Reb]

Re: Buttons?

Jordan,
appareantly you didn't look at the MB&S page witht the generic CS wooden buttons. It should change your mind. The following was copied from the MBS button page:

THE ULTIMATE CONFEDERATE BUTTON
AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY FROM
MISSOURI BOOT AND SHOE CO

While on an inspecting tour in Columbus, Ga. in the winter of 1862-63, I was informed that wooden, horn and bone buttons were being manufactured there, and I visited the plant. The factory was owned by a former lieutenant of the Confederate army, who had lost an arm in one of the early battles.

The motive power of his factory was an engine of moderate horsepower that had been used to run a printing press. So complete were the saws, borers, and drying kilns that in the final process of their manufacture the completed buttons dropped into the hoppers with as much rapidity as nails from a nail making machine.
Dr. S.H. Stout, Medical Director of Hospitals in Confederate Veteran Magazine.



Our button making machines are not quite so rapid as the originals but they do produce one of the finest reproductions of wooden, recessed center, two hole Confederate wooden buttons. These buttons compare favorably with the originals often seen on the mystery jacket and other depot produced Confederate jackets. They seem to have been distributed from the Trans-Mississippi to the Atlantic coast. Our reproductions are made from kiln-dried native hardwoods with an oil finish in their natural color that compares very well with the original specimens

It fits into your time frame and location of GA. The oil finish gives them a sheen in the light. As far a the jacket I can't hazzard a guess. 9 button front could be one of several jackets.

[fire_zouave]

Re: Buttons?

The Pilcher RD III Jacket located at Appomattox NPS was apparently issued with four hole "dished" wooden buttons.

http://home.nps.gov/ner/customcf/apps/CMS_HandF/Pictures/APCO_Pilcher-dyk.jpg

If the jacket in the picture is not an RD II it certainly resembles one.

[McKim]

Re: Buttons?

It looks like one rubber, and the rest wood to me.

[Enfilade]

Re: Buttons?

[QUOTE=fire_zouave;95149]The Pilcher RD III Jacket located at Appomattox NPS was apparently issued with four hole "dished" wooden buttons.

http://home.nps.gov/ner/customcf/apps/CMS_HandF/Pictures/APCO_Pilcher-dyk.jpg

If the jacket in the picture is not an RD II it certainly resembles one.[/QUOTE

This jacket Seay is wearing was obviously issued to him while a recruit in Georgia, 1861. By Les Jensen's outstanding article naming Depot Type jackets, it would then specifically eliminate this jacket from RD II status as Type 2's were not made until early 1862.

Was the garment made in Athens, Columbus, or somewhere else?

Mark Berrier
North State Rifles

http://www.northstaterifles.com

[Prodical Reb]

Re: Buttons?

Could be eight bone buttons and one wood or horn button too. The bone buttons should appear as a light color and the wood or horn would appear dark depending onthe the type of wood or horn they were made of.