jgas wrote:
> Civil War General Service Button??
First... although it is a US Army uniform button, it is a Staff Officer button. The army's "General Service" button (same upraised-wings eagle surmounted by a shield having no letter in the shield, and no stars on the button) was issued only to Enlisted-men's ranks (private, corporal, sergeant).
> Located this in a field mostly filled with 1900s coinage. Nothing really earlier than that. So the question is is this a civil war button?
Those two facts present the main problem about your button being a civil war era one. That specific version of US Army Officer button was used from the 1830s until 1902.
> It has no back.
The fact that its back is missing cancels one of the main ways to time-date a button... its backmark/maker's-mark. Most often when a button is missing its back, the reason is it had an iron (or steel) back which has corroded away.
That being said... there is one other fact I can tell you about your button which may be of interest to you. The only version of US Army Staff Officer button which had an iron back was the kepi hat strap attachment button. You did not tell us anything about your button's size. But going by how it looks in the palm of your hand, it could be the kepi-strap version.
In summary:
Since that version of US Army Staff Officer button was issued until 1902 (when it was replaced by the "Great Seal" US Army button), and nothing from the field where you dug it has been from earlier than about 1900, the statistical odds favor it being from the Spanish-American War era (1890s).
