This pattern of eagle, with victory wreath around its neck, had Roman antecedents but was adopted by the U.S. Dragoons from its immediate Napoleonic ancestors in 1833 for their hat plates. It found immediate popularity in militia units for both hat and belt plates in various forms, but mostly as here with a silver eagle on a gold background. See both American Military Belt Plates, Plate 729 ff., and American Military Headgear Insignia, Plate 237 ff. for examples. In this case the eagle is attached to vertical oval crossbelt plate by two long pins. The back of the plate shows a brass bar acting as a belt loop and has a wide separate brass tongue above it that would hook into a thin hasp. The eagle has good detail and a mellow silver tone. The brass likely had a gilt finish, but now shows as a mellow, aged brass. A tag with it identified it as coming from a Philadelphia unit, but we do not know which one. As a commercial plate the design could have been used by more than one unit, but it certainly suggests a sword shoulder belt in a mounted company. The narrow bar and wide tongue point to a likely date in the 1880s.

The die work on the eagle is impressive and this is a very good looking American military belt plate.  [sr][ph:L]

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