First Civil War Button!…Sort of

[SweepNbeep]

My daughter wanted to go metal detecting for her 14th birthday, so we headed out to one of our favorite spots. It is an 1880's farmstead, out on the edge of a field. There is nothing left of this place except the metal in the ground. The only reason we know it is there is from the accounts of the old timers. We've been over it so many times now, that it's getting hard to come up with anything noteworthy, but we always seem to manage one good pull so we continue to hunt it. Eventually I swept over this and my daughter dug it up and pin pointed it. I'd never heard of or seen one before. She looked it up, and it turned out to be a button from The Grand Army of the Republic.

According to Wikipedia "The "Grand Army of the Republic" (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army (United States Army), Union Navy (U.S. Navy), Marines and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service who served in the American Civil War for the Northern/Federal forces. Founded in 1866 in Decatur, Illinois, and growing to include hundreds of posts (local community units) across the nation, (predominately in the North, but also a few in the South and West), it was dissolved in 1956 when its last member, Albert Woolson (1850—1956) of Duluth, Minnesota, died."

Anyway, we were pretty happy with it, and it turned into a nice little history lesson, as detecting often does. Thanks for looking.

 

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[trapperart]

Great button find congrats and thanks for the info

 

[ShovelinDave]

Congrats on the nice button rescue. We had a GAR Memorial Hall building here in my town across from the courthouse. I believe it's a lawyers office now, imagine that. Happy late B-Day to your daughter and cherish the time together.

 

[vpnavy]

Nice find (and ID) SweepNbeep!

 

[relic nut]

Sweet find! That would look great in any CW collection. Nice follow up on research. 🍻

HH, RN

 

[Trezurehunter]

Congrats on a nice button.

 

[texjim]

Awesome button..

 

[GoldFinger006]

Fantastic find.

 

[deershed]

Congrats on a Sweet button!! I found a GAR badge earlier in the year.
Unbelievable the history lessons dirtdiggers get.

 

[HighVDI]

Congrats on a nice find. The grave marker I recently dug had the GAR on it.

 

[SweepNbeep]

Thanks everybody. It's nice to be among others who appreciate such things. To be honest, I don't think most the people I know would find it all that interesting. We were in Mississippi earlier this year, and we were really hoping to find a civil war relic, but we never did. We came away with some really cool stuff, but nothing one could definitively say was from the war. Civil War finds are pretty hard to come by in MN, and this might be as close as we'll ever get around here. About all a guy can hope for is to find something a veteran brought back up North, and that's gotta be rare. But, this'll tide us over until we can get back down south.

 

[Stretch Da Truth]

Congrats to you and your daughter!!
It is cool that she wanted to go out MDing for her birthday! I hunt with my son and we have a blast together.
Hope she enjoyed her day and keeps going out with you. These are awesome times... I cherish my memories.

 

[SweepNbeep]

She loves it as much as I do, and I do love the time together. My other kids enjoy it too, but she was the only one who wanted to hunt with me in the rain on Super Bowl Sunday, soaked to the core, and we found dozens of arrowheads. She's a little die hard.

 

[SweepNbeep]

It's not like the Vikings were gonna be playing.

 

[Stretch Da Truth]

She loves it as much as I do, and I do love the time together. My other kids enjoy it too, but she was the only one who wanted to hunt with me in the rain on Super Bowl Sunday, soaked to the core, and we found dozens of arrowheads. She's a little die hard.

Thats awesome!!! Sounds like you can get out and have fun with the whole family. Nothing better than that. Enjoy while you can, they grow so fast!!
How do the arrow heads look? Any good ones?

 

[SweepNbeep]

Yeah, some real dandys. It was a day we'll never forget. I don't know if it was the rain or what? We were just on the spot that day. I hope to get back in that field again sometime, after a good plowing and some more rain.

 

[against the wind]

Congratulations on the G.A.R. Button and the arrow heads.
Spending time with your daughter is the icing on the cake.

 

[Beep-a-Cheep]

I nominate banner!

 

[Whyme]

Very cool find! Congrats! This hobby does get you into exploring the history around the areas you hunt. I talk to a man weekly who has extensive historical knowledge of our town. I tried to find where a park was, its name was in a lot of articles in old newspapers. Came up empty. Asked him one day and he said "Oh yeah that's where the VFW post is now. Everyone used to picnic there." He then gave me the lowdown on a few places to hunt.

 

[A2coins]

Great find and welcome to the new treasure hunter!!!!!