This excavated brass badge measuring 1 3/4" in width shows shows as a dark, brownish-green with dusty white spots and on the reverse shows two gray and white ovals where a pin and fastening hook had been soldered. These are missing, but the badge is very good, showing no bends or breaks. Corps badges, as a matter of esprit de corps, and practical identification of troops, had been introduced in the Army of the Potomac in early 1863 and then spread beyond the eastern theatre. The crescent encircling a star was the badge of the 7^th Army Corps, Department of Arkansas, officially adopted by a circular from Headquarters Dept. of Arkansas, at Little Rock, issued June 1, 1865, though like many badges it may have been worn unofficially for some time before that. Issue badges of the corps were, of course, cut from cloth, usually die cut, in the standard red, white and blue division colors, but officers and enlisted men could both acquire metallic badges of varying quality by private purchase and there was a certain amount of variation. Corps commander Maj. Gen. J.J. Reynolds is photographed wearing a similar badge, but with points of a five-pointed star resting on the corners of the crescent moon, which points down. Period lithographs show the badge oriented in different directions and with one point of the star pointing to the opening of the crescent. A photograph in the Library of Congress shows a member of the corps wearing a crescent encircling a seven-pointed star, perhaps a figural reminder of the corps’s numerical designation.    [SM][ph:m/L]

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