December Finds at Union Camp - Help identify

[alabama11]

Hello All,
Was fortunate to retrieve these artifacts before they were buried for ever. If anyone would like to identify any of these then please respond.
The spectemur agendo button is unclear so I will resend.
From Alabama

 

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[Cletus]

very interesting finds!!
i'm sure someone will be able to tell you exactly what you have here.
Congrats!!!

 

[ivan salis]

the triangle shaped item is a knap sack part ...the two bottom right items are "tent rope tighteners "-- the bottom row middle item is a buckle ...top row left item is a broken off part of a spur from a cavalry riders spurs,, the washer looking items --might be tent or clothing rivet hole type items or washers of some type

in latin... spectmur agendo ... means roughly --what good is words / let us be judged by our actions--

 

[alabama11]

Thank you Sir.

 

[alabama11]

Spectemur Agendo button

The button is larger than a quarter and has heavy red corrosion on the backside. Hoping this photo is better. It was found within 3 meters of several of the other recoveries so it could be associated. There are two other buttons of this type which were posted on line from GA and each was associated with a Civil War site. One from "The Trenches of Atlanta".

 

[fyrffytr1]

Do the rope tensioners have a patent date on them? I have found several with a Nov. 30 90 date. Also, would you please post a picture of the back?

 

[villagenut]

While you may have some CW relics here, there is a little bit of controversy over the tent rope tensioners. Apparently these were not patented until post CW. These danged things come out of camps all too often but they can't be given any attribution to the CW camp, but rather a later campsite...post war. Personally I am not convinced, I have found them in CW camps right along period artifacts and I know many others have too. I think that while a patent was secured sometime after the war, the usage of these may have been earlier before a patent was applied for. Seems that ones found in CW camps do not bear the patent date information that existed on the later ones....JMO but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

 

[alabama11]

They do have a date. Looks like NOV. 30 80. There were Spanish American War Soldier Camps in this area too.

 

[Spats]

I have found these tent tighteners in Civil War camps also. They didn't have dates. I look closely at every Civil War photograph that has a tent in it. I have yet to find one that definitively show these tighteners, but I sure would like to.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

I wrote an article for the North/South Trader's Civil War magazine, giving fairly solid proof that they are from no earlier than the 1880s. Like Spats has already said here, the article mentioned that NONE of these tentrope adjusters are visible in careful close-up examination of civil war photos showing tents. The article included the official US Army Quartermaster General document attached below, stating that they were adopted for Army use on January 5, 1889.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Alabama11, here is the original US Patent's diagram of the brass tent-rope adjuster ("tent-slip") drawn by it's inventor, H.B. Thompson. If you'd like to read Mr. Thompson's description of his invention and how it is "an improvement" over the wooden adjusters used in the civil war {and earlier), go to:
pat2pdf.org
and type the Patent-number (234,896) into the search function.

 

[fyrffytr1]

They do have a date. Looks like NOV. 30 80. There were Spanish American War Soldier Camps in this area too.
View attachment 1263357

We find ours at a Spanish/American war camp site as well.

 

[ivan salis]

well if their dated 80(1880) then they are Spanish American war troop items --since the civil war ended in 1865 ---there are exsamples of undated versions ...which might have been made earlier ( during the civil war )

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

In the inventor's US Patent application, he says his "tent-slip" is an improvement over earlier versions. The shape of the undated ones is the same as the dated ones. So, the shape of the inventor's version did not exist before he patented it. If that shape of tent-rope adjuster had been in existence during the civil war, the US Patent Office would have denied Mr. Thompson's 1880 application for a patent on his design. In other words, if the device has been being manufactured for years WITHOUT being Patent-protected, you can't show up at the Patent Office after all those years and claim, "Hey, that device is my invention and I want a Patent so nobody can make it or sell it but me."

Sidenote: civil war photos show that at that time tent-rope adjusters were made of wood.

In the 1800s a US Patent (with its legal protection for the invention) only lasted for 17 years. After the Patent expired there's no point in putting the Patent notification on the item. Logic suggests the unmarked ones were made after the Patent expired.

 

[alabama11]

Excellent Research, Thank you.

 

[Tejaas]

The button is larger than a quarter and has heavy red corrosion on the backside. Hoping this photo is better. It was found within 3 meters of several of the other recoveries so it could be associated. There are two other buttons of this type which were posted on line from GA and each was associated with a Civil War site. One from "The Trenches of Atlanta". View attachment 1263250

That's a known fashion button - iron backed, hence your red corrosion.

Waterbury still makes the pattern as far as i know, and it has been a popular motif since the early 1900's.

The entire state of Georgia can be associated with the ACW in at least some way if you try hard enough, and is purely coincidental.

Nice finds!

EDIT: Dug this up for ya:
http://www.waterburybutton.com/cart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=52&idproduct=29527

~Tejaas~

 

[Davers]

I wrote an article for the North/South Trader's Civil War magazine, giving fairly solid proof that they are from no earlier than the 1880s. Like Spats has already said here, the article mentioned that NONE of these tentrope adjusters are visible in careful close-up examination of civil war photos showing tents. The article included the official US Army Quartermaster General document attached below, stating that they were adopted for Army use on January 5, 1889.

Yeah CBG.....I still see them in Many peoples Display Cases.

 

[ivan salis]

so spanish american war military issue ...esp. if the area was used as a camp ground area for troops during that time frame (1899 - 1901)