BRAVO member Glen Gunther holds a brass Revolutionary War period buckle he had just located with his detector. _____________
The above montage of photographs shows all sides of a die found at the site by the author’s son and his girlfriend. _____________
One of the first was a period sling buckle used with either made from musket balls, it is obvious that this order was not strictly enforced. a cartridge box belt, sword belt, or bayonet belt found Most digs have one artifact that will stand out more by Glen Gunther. Glen had found an area that yielded a group of artifacts including two more brass buckles. than others. On that crisp March day, Bill Rott, a novMy son and his girlfriend, Marisa Korody, borrowed ice in BRAVO, found what appeared to be a pewter USA button in very good condition. It was not unmy detector and wandered off to the corner of the til many days later while cleandesignated quad. Later in the day, they came back and handed me a ing the artifact that I noticed the lead cube asking if it was anything distinct numbers “1777” under of importance. I immediately knew the “USA.” This was now officially a fantastic find since prior it was a die made from a hammered to this button being dug, only two musket ball. However, it did not “USA/1777” buttons had been rehave any dots on the facets but had Roman numerals for all of the ported found. numbers except “four” (and the It was an incredible day at an incredible site. We put in a “I”, chewed off by a squirrel). A number of dice made from musket grid for Carin for future excavaballs, ranging from unfinished tions and identified the hot spots. Subsequent controlled excavablanks to the conventional dotted die, were found in later surveys. I tions of these hot spots yielded the wall outlines, fireplaces and personally found both a finished die and an unfinished die in one trash pits of the soldiers’ huts hole. that stood there during the winter of 1777-1778. These finds were very signifiIn later surveys and field cant since one of the first general excavations, numerous military orders, given by General George and other 18th century artifacts Washington at Valley Forge, was The author holds a pair of were found such as musket balls, there was to be no gaming in homemade dice, one completed gun parts, six 2nd Pennsylvania camp. From the number of dice, and one not, found in one hole. buttons, tomahawks and small gaming pieces, and flat lead disks Many gaming devices were axes, shoe and belt buckles, (probably used for either checkers found at the site, despite orders or game chips), all of which were cuff links, plain buttons, eating against soldiers’ gambling. September-October 2012 American Digger Magazine
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