Camp Identity
So often
we find Yankee relics in confederate camps and vise versa. There's
many reasons for this, and how do we go about identifying
the type of camp we are hunting? In 1860 before the war
between the states, men from the north as well as the south
all served united for the United States military. The
military attire was the same for everyone, U.S. buckle,
eagle buttons, breast plates, etc. etc. When the war between
the states erupted, the U.S. military split. Those from the
north went their way, and those from the south the same. The
northern states were more industrialized than that of the
south. The southern confederacy depended on small button
makers in the south for example," Hyde and
Goodrich", "Theodore Miller" as well as foreign
button makers. As the war progressed, the union blockades
prevented any foreign trade to enter the southern states.
When the U.S. military split and the soldiers
went their way, so did those U.S. military attires! Times
were hard in those days, and to many, it didn't matter what
they wore. When it was time for those southern boys to go
into confederate camps, many of them wore those U.S.
military attires, it was all they had. This is why we find
U.S. belt plates, breast plates, and eagle buttons of all
sorts in CS camps. Earlier buttons are found in these CS
camps as well, these guys wore anything they could get their
hands on. Many think the "Flower Button" was for
women, well that's wrong. Men on both sides of the mason
wore clothing with flower buttons etc., however, during the
war it was more prominent on the confederacy side. Some
folks feel just because a soldier was a confederate he had a
CS uniform. If the truth be known, only about 50% of the
confederate army was clothed in CS attire, and that may be
stretching it.
There's been times when hunting a Yankee
site, a confederate button is dug, and that question enters
our minds, "wonder how this got here. During the
war, soldiers would exchange items for souvenirs. Buttons
were one of these items. This is why we find some CS relics
in Yankee camps, and vice versa. Sometimes the site was used
by both opposing forces, and a mixture of both types of army
relics are present. Just because you find a three ring Minnie
ball does not mean you're on a Yankee site :) Both sides used
this bullet. Three ring minnies are found in every CS site
in Texas, as well as other southern states, and there were
no Yankees in a lot of these camps.
How do we determine what type of camp we are
hunting if no state buttons or any other identifiable relics
have been found to determine who occupied the site? I'm
going to use two examples here, one of which will be Yankee,
the other confederate. If you hunting a site and your
finding eagle buttons, but mostly flower buttons and flat
buttons, this is usually the tell tale sign of a CS camp.
Another tell tale sign would be the Enfield bullet. All
though some Yankees did use this bullet, this bullet was
mainly used by the confederate army. Round balls are another
tell tale sign of a CS site. Why are round balls found in CS
sites? These guys were army poor from the get go. They
brought shot guns, old muskets from earlier wars way before
the minnie was invented. The Yankees on the other hand were
army rich! They had the latest and newest of everything for
the most part. Round balls in Yankee camps? I don't think
so, you might find a .69 cal. though :) No, the southern
boys brought their guns with them from home, most of which
were that of round ball type.
Yankee camps are usually pretty easy to
identify. The bullets in such camps usually give this away
long before a single button is found, most relic hunters
from Virginia can vouch for this. The Yankee army was rich.
They had lots of stuff compared to their counter part the
confederates. As I stated earlier, the north was more
industrialized than that of the south.
From personal experiences hunting both Yankee
and confederate camps "mostly confederate" I must
say there are two main things that always show up more
prominent in CS camps than that of the northern army, flat
or flower buttons, and round balls. I always find an
abundance of these relics in CS camps. I would like to say
this, the confederate army of northern Virginia early on in
the war, had better clothing "CS" than later on.
The blockades at sea, as well as the Yankee control over the
Mississippi and other main rivers was the cause of this.
Before ending this article, I would like to share something
with everyone. Some may already know this, some may not.
Have you ever found a button that has a ring
"key chain type" run through the eye of the
button? The reason for the ring was to keep a grouping of
buttons together so they wouldn't be lost so easily. When
the soldier lost a button from his uniform, he would take
one off the ring and replace the lost button. Now we know
why we find thimbles in camps :) I hope some of this
information has helped, there's a ton of information on
identifying a camp that I didn't even go into, we would end
up with a book if I had. I wish you all great success in the
field. Larry Cissna...TR
TEXASREBEL@COMPUTRON.NET
