A few months back I was giving a talk on Boston powder horns and one of them had a small, carved, intertwined “USA” carved into the cannon. After the talk, someone came up to me and said, “they didn’t use the word ‘USA’ until the 1790s.” I politely explained how USA-marked buttons were used by Continental forces during the war and how the term “USA” was certainly not a post-Revolutionary War symbol, which I will elaborate on for you here.
One of the most commonly found pewter buttons by relic hunters and archaeologists on sites from the northeast to Georgia and beyond is the USA button. It’s hard to know when they saw their first use, although they have been found at Saratoga, New York. The first written mention seems to be from a deserter description written in a newspaper in 1777. They were made locally, but by 1778 they were being ordered from France along with ready-made uniforms, cloth, shoes, muskets, and other material needed to supply an army.
The powder horn I had spoken about in the talk was made by an unknown carver who had never finished it so there was no name or date. There are three others known carved by the same hand that are named and dated 1775, but the addition of the intertwined USA and what we know about the buttons possibly date it to circa 1777.
There are a variety of forms of the USA button. Some have a rope border around the circumference of the button, and some do not. One example that we can obviously date has “1777” cast into the button below the “USA” and was found at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. One of the coolest button related objects found is a USA button gang mold found in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was excavated near Independence Hall and was made to cast five buttons at a time.
The best reference for these buttons, better yet, any buttons from the Revolutionary war, is Insignia of Independence: Military Buttons, Accoutrement Plates, & Gorgets of the American Revolution, written by Don Troiani and James L. Kochan. They show many currently known examples of each, and where they were found. It is a useful tool to better understand the differences and numerous variations. There is also an online supplement where new finds are added to better understand the subject. The book is definitely a must for historians and archaeologists alike.
