bobinwmass
Sergeant
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2019
- Location
- Western Massachusetts
My hunch is that these Pennsylvania militia epaulets are post Civil War. They were incorrectly attached to a National Lancers of Boston jacket that I posted about earlier this week, looking for feedback. The Pennsylvania buttons on the epaulets are actually wartime vintage. Tice, in his book "Uniform Buttons of the United States 1776-1865" indicates this type button is the standard Pennsylvania Civil War button, and buttons with this backmark of 2 circles of dots were made be Steele & Johnson from the 1850's to 1861. I know it's quite likely that surplus Civil War buttons could be used on later epaulets. At first I thought someone had used gold spray paint to color the white worsted tassels, but since they move freely, it is more likely they were dipped into some type of gold paint/dye. Anyone know of any examples of this being done during time of use or is it definitely some yahoo messing with them well after the fact? Based upon the colors, any guesses as to what militia group would have used these?