Need help with top of a two-piece button!! Is it military? aluminum? silver? gold?

[testing123]

Found this at a place that's yielded a couple buttons from the 1700s and is still in use today. Toward the end of the hunt I get a sort of zincoln signal under some tree roots. After digging a little bit, what came out first looked like the top of a silver ring - this thing came out CLEAN - like silver does.

I don't see any flaking or anything like that, so it's solid metal whatever it is. I tried the silver test and I thought it turned deep red, but it looks like it's just where it pooled and looked red. So, I also tried it on aluminum and had similar response with the silver test solution. HOWEVER, I've never seen aluminum come out of the ground like this - it was bright. And it was right in the middle of pine tree roots.

Now, my first thought was military, but the design looks almost a little too ... half-assed to be military. But, not sure what else it could be if not military. Does anyone recognize such a piece? And, any idea on what metal it could be? Age? Thanks for any help you can provide!

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

The "basic" design of your button's emblem is that of the US Army's eagle-button from the 1840s to 1901. But yours looks like the eagle has been "modernized" ...having the eagle holding many more than the original number of arrows, and the eagle's head updated to look more militaristic. But I do not recognize what the eagle is holding in its beak. I've seen quite a few varieties of Military School buttons which used the 19th-century US Army eagle-button's emblem as the basis for the design on the school's uniform buttons -- so that's my best guess about the type of button you found.

You're right, PURE aluminum doesn't look like that when it comes out of the ground ...but it might be one of the newfangled aluminum alloys which do not tarnish.