CIVIL WAR BUTTONS FOUND AT GREEN MOUNT!

On February 13th I was outside in the snow trying to help my son get the driveway more driveable. I was using a shovel to move some snow around and when I was walking back up toward the house I saw a button lying on the ground. It had just surfaced from the freezing and melting of the snow. A lot of pieces of broken dishes and glassware surface in this one little spot next to the well pump, but never a button before. There it was, like someone had dropped it yesterday. Actually it had probably gotten dropped in 1864 or so. Here's a picture of it.

It is a Yankee Staff Officer's button and it's worth maybe $30 - $40.00.


So we figured that was a pretty lucky find. My husband got his medal detector out a few weeks later and checked around that spot some more, but only found trash like aluminum foil and even an aluminum pie pan. So we're thinking maybe they used to burn trash in that spot or something when the last generation of Fleets lived here. Who knows. But yesterday, March 27th my son and I were back out there working on defining the area where we park and he scraped a bunch of dirt away so we could get some gravel and put down. Well, I was raking the dirt getting out the clumps of grass and another button just rolled out of the dirt. I couldn't believe it. But this is in the exact same area where the first button was found. And this button was just like the one I had found in February. Another Yankee Staff Officer's button. I thought, darn, that was lucky. Neat! So I put it in my pocket and kept raking. Guess what?! Another button within a minute of finding the last one rolled out of the dark dirt. This one looked different though. So I took it inside and called my husband who was out of town. I was looking at it under a magnifying glass describing it and he said, "That's a Maryland button and it's worth maybe $200." So I was happy! We won't sell it of course, but it's fun to find these things. I called my nephew and he came with his son and checked all over the spot with his detector. Aluminum foil and cans is all we could come up with. Weird! I think that area being near to the old well, may have been a resting spot, like a shady sitting area. And perhaps when the Yankees were here at Green Mount, which they were a couple of times, they lost some buttons! The pictures below are of the two I found yesterday. The photos are really crummy. But the one that's blurry really looks just like the button pictured above. The one on the right with some gold showing is really pretty and the picture doesn't show all the detail the button has. It's two people standing on either side of a shield in the center and then MARYLAND is written along the bottom circular edge. Really nice.

Yankee Staff Officer Button & Maryland Button

I'm not trying to be greedy, but I sure would rather find a Confederate button. But, I am really thankful that I found these.

The man who founded Wendy's Restaurants has passed away. His name was Dave Thomas. I remember reading something he said once which was "The harder you work, the luckier you get." I truly believe that is true. It's like if you work hard, you are rewarded in ways you would never expect. I'm very appreciative of the small rewards that were given to me from the soil at Green Mount. It made all that raking and shoveling worthwhile! I only wish these buttons could talk!