✅ SOLVED pewter marked 'sn'

[McCDig]

Found this today at a site that has yielded colonial items: buttons, musketballs, later 1700s coins, and a couple buckle fragments.

This item has me stumped.

It distinctly bears the lower-case letters 's' 'n', is thin and somewhat brittle. You see from the pic that in handling out of the ground it began to fragment.

Because of its shape I don't think this was part of something larger.

Ideas?

 

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[McCDig]

Thx for this lesson in Southern history, Spats. As a novice to Southern heritage, the little I know of the Civil War has come from reading biographies of Lee and fictional writings of Shaara, Gingrich, and others.

 

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[McCDig]

Found this obit detail in regard to someone who lived on this property and is buried here.

"(I have omitted the name) served in the War of 1812 as a private in Capt. Henry Thompson's First Baltimore Horse Artillery (aka Capt. Thompson's Co of Cavalry. MD Militia) that saw action in 1814 as a cavalry messenger/observation unit at the Battles of Bladensburg and Baltimore in addition to being the personal guard of Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith, commander of the 3rd Division."

In your opinion, is it possible that this is this gentleman's rosette?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

McCDig, using logic, and historical knowledge, we can be 100% certain that your solder-filled brass US rosette cannot have belonged to the War-Of-1812 soldier you are asking about.

First and foremost, the version of US horse-bridle rosette you found did not exist until at least two decades after the War-Of-1812. If it did exist at that time, we would have found some in sites related to that war (or at least, that time-period), but none have been reported.

Second, your soldier was a member of a Horse Artillery unit... and artillerymen do not ride individual horses like a cavalryman does. Although the Horse Artillery company he belonged to was part of a Cavalry regiment, he was an artilleryman, not a cavalryman.

The majority of artillerymen don't get to ride a horse... they walk. A couple of lucky ones ride on the horse-team which pulls the cannons and limber-chests (ammo wagons). A couple more get to ride atop the ammo-chests. An artillery Officer rides his own horse, but your artilleryman soldier was not an officer. So, even if the rosette you found dated back to 1812, your soldier was not riding a horse which used a US-rosette-bearing bridle.

 

[McCDig]

Thx TheCannonballGuy! Appreciate this explanation, your research and time.....a big help on this one.

 

[McCDig]

Here's a bit more on Capt. Henry Thompson's 1st Baltimore Horse Artillery:

Henry Thompson was born in 1774 in Sheffield, England and came to Baltimore in 1794, where he became a member of the Baltimore Light Dragoons. He was elected captain of this company in 1809, six years after completing a house called “Clifton” in what is now Clifton Park in Baltimore City but back then was Baltimore County. By 1813, Captain Thompson had disbanded the Light Dragoons and formed a mounted company called The First Baltimore Horse Artillery. Brigadier General John Stricker soon enlisted Captain Thompson and his horsemen to act as mounted messengers traveling between Washington and Bladensburg to report on the movements of British troops and ships. The unit also became the personal guard to General Samuel Smith, who commanded the defenses during the Battle of Baltimore and Ft. McHenry in 1814.