Woodland Detectors
Gold Member
I have been very fortunate in finding some elusive Confederate Military Uniform buttons since I started detecting in NC, and this one is no exception to rarity dug around 13 plus inches deep in heavy red clay.
Forget about all the shiny gilt that dressed this button at one time, sadly it's long gone now. It has succumb to the elements. Hard to see from the photos, but it is indeed listed as 13mm {Albert's SU 272} The design Features a "Don't mess with me" Hornets nest 8) with "NC" on sides on a lined field, and "MILITARY INSTITUTE" around the edge. Some Cadets manned an artillery piece in the Civil War's FIRST land battle at Big Bethel, Virginia in June 1861. **The North Carolina Military Institute was organized in the 1850s by a group of Charlotte businessmen led by Dr. Charles J. Fox. The cornerstone of the first building was laid in 1858. The building and educational programs it housed were patterned after those of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
D. H. Hill, previously a professor at Davidson College, guided development of the curriculum and served as president of the board of directors. Hill instituted stiff regulations on conduct for his cadets based on training he received as a student at West Point and through his Mexican War experiences. After receiving its charter in 1859, the Institute enrolled approximately 125 students ranging in age from twelve to twenty-one. The first class of cadets graduated in 1860 and served as some of the first recruits and training personnel for North Carolina troops at the start of the Civil War.
At the start of the American Civil war, Governor Zebulon B. Vance summoned D.H. Hill and other military strategists to Raleigh to assemble camps of instruction for freshly recruited troops. Hill was placed in charge of Camp Ellis in Raleigh and was joined by many of his faculty and cadets in forming the First North Carolina Regiment. All of the staff officers of the regiment were former faculty members of the Institute. When the regiment was formed, Adjutant General Robert F. Hoke stipulated that the cadets could join the regiment with the consent of their parents and guardians. Once most of the students and all of the leading faculty members had gone off to war, the school was used as a Confederate military hospital.
The Front, barely visible now, boasts the Hornets nest and the Letters NC on both sides
Front
More of the front
Very hard to see, the back should have the "Scovill MFG.CO. Back Mark
Thread is still attached to the shank!
Here is a photo of a NC Military Institute button from my friends website http://www.civilwarbuttons.com/csstatelist.htm selling for over 1,150.00
Historical Marker
The rest of the finds. The gold plated ring came from the same plug as the NC Military Institute Button.
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.....Looks like lucky you! 
To bad about condition but man it made up for it on rarity. 
Could you imagine that? That's barely old enough to know how to skip rocks. 
