Union buckel

[moah4me]

I found this a year or so ago metal detecting a old home sight in western New York. I never dreamed of finding civil war relics in New York. So you can imagine my suprise when i pulled this out of the hole. It came out of what is know a field and was only 5 to 6 inches down. Since finding the buckle I have found several military buttons in the same field and what was once the neighboring home in the field next to it. The buckle has 989 punched in small numbers on the back. Any info that is known about this buckle would be a great help. What was the meaning to the numbers on the back i would really like to know .

thanks for looking
Moah

[americancivilwarrelics]

That is a late war pattern used quite frequently here in the Shenandoah Valley. It is missing the German silver wreath which would have been soldered onto the front. The benchmarks would have coincided with the benchmarks on the keepers. Nice Find! What type of buttons did you find around it? There have to be large entry level camps around New York. It may have been lost at a National Guard outpost as well.