_USNM 60299-M (S-K 57). Figure 106._
[Illustration: FIGURE 106]
This plate, which is of brass, is of a less common design than its
predecessors. However, since there is another such plate, but of
silver-on-copper, in the national collections, it can be surmised that
pieces of this same pattern were made for use by several different
units.
A floral-bordered shield is topped by an out-sized sunburst with 13
stars, clouds, and the motto "Unity is Strength." In the center of
the shield is the eagle, with wings widely outspread and with
lightning bolts in the right talon and an olive branch in the left
talon. The lightning bolt device, obvious sign of belligerency, first
appeared about 1800 and is not seen in plates designed after 1821. The
motto and the date 1776 are far more typical of Militia than Regular
Army usage.
¶ In 1821 the Regular Army discarded all its large cap plates and
adopted the bell-crown leather cap. Militia organizations lost no time
in adopting a similar cap and, conversely, placing on it--and on the
tall beaver which followed in the 1830's--the largest plates it could
accommodate, using variations of discarded Regular Army patterns as
well as original designs.
From 1821 until well into the 1840's large cap plates were
mass-produced by manufacturers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
perhaps other cities of the New England metal manufacturing area. The
few early platemakers, such as Crumpton and Armitage of Philadelphia
and Peasley of Boston, were joined by a number of others. Prominent
among these were Charles John Joullain, who made plates in New York
during the 1820's, and William Pinchin of Philadelphia. Joullain is
first listed in New York directories, in 1817, as a "gilder," and so
continues through 1828. Sometimes his given name is listed as Charles,
sometimes as James, and finally as Charles James. From 1820 to 1828
his address is the same, 32 Spring Street. There is a William Pinchin
(Pinchon) listed in the Philadelphia directories as a silverplater or
silversmith almost continuously from 1785 through 1863, indicating the
possibility of a family occupation.
It is believed that some of the New England makers of uniform buttons
also manufactured plates. Among such buttonmakers of the 1820's and
1830's were R. and W. Robinson, D. Evans and Co., Leavenworth and Co.,
Benedict and Coe, and others in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Buttonmakers often stamped their names or easily recognizable
hallmarks on the back of their products.
In most cases it is virtually impossible to ascertain the precise
units for which these different plates were first designed, and the
problem is further complicated because the maker would sell a specific
plate design to several different units. Those designs that
incorporate all or part of a state's seal were originally made for
Militia organizations of the particular state, but in several
instances these plates were sold--altered or not--to units in other
parts of the country. Militia organizations that were widely separated
geographically purchased cap plates from distant manufacturers who had
perhaps a dozen or more stock patterns to offer at a cost much lower
than that involved in making a new die from which to strike
custom-made ornaments. It made no difference to the Savannah Greys, in
Georgia, that their new cap plates were the same as those worn by
organizations in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Toward the end of
this period of large cap plates, manufacturers came out with two-piece
ornaments. After 1833, when the Regiment of United States Dragoons was
authorized its large sunburst plate with separate eagle ornament in
the center, insignia makers introduced a veritable rash of full
sunburst, three-quarter sunburst, and half-sunburst cap plates with
interchangeable centers. And for the first time small Militia units
could afford their own distinctive devices at little extra cost.
Shoulder-belt and waist-belt plates underwent the same evolution, and
by the late 1830's such plates had become a mixture of either single
die stampings or composite plates made of several parts soldered or
otherwise held onto a rectangular or oval background.
Study of cap plates and other insignia in the Huddy and Duval prints
in _U.S. Military Magazine_ points to the years between 1833 and
perhaps 1837 or 1838 as the transition period from single to composite
ornaments, years during which there was also tremendous growth in the
popularity and number of independent Militia units. In contrast to the
1820's when the Militia often waited until the Regulars discarded a
device before adopting it, in 1840 there were no less than five
organizations, mounted and dismounted, wearing the 1833 dragoon plate
in full form while it was still in use by the Regulars. _U.S. Military
Magazine_ illustrates such plates for the Richmond Light Infantry
Blues, the Georgia Hussars, the Macon Volunteers, the Jackson Rifle
Corps of Lancaster, Pa., the Montgomery Light Guard, and the Harrison
Guards of Allentown, Pa. The plate of the Harrison Guards is an
example of the license sometimes practiced by Huddy and Duval in the
preparation of their military prints. The color bearer in this print
is depicted wearing a full sunburst plate, while the description of
the uniform called for "a semi-circular plate or _gloria_."[104]
[Footnote 104: _U.S. Military Magazine_ (March 1839), p. 4.]
In the following descriptions of plates, the term "stock pattern" is
used because the insignia are known to have been worn by more than one
organization, because their basic designs are so elementary that it
appears obvious that they were made for wide distribution, or because
they are known to have been made both in silver and in gilt metals.