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 Those designs that incorporate all or part of a state's seal were originally made for Militia organizations of the particular state, but in several instances these plates were sold—altered or not—to units in other parts of the country.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]
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.
CAP PLATE, ARTILLERY, C. 1825
USNM 60307-M (S-K 64). Figure 107.
Figure 107
On the raised center of this shield-shaped plate is the eagle-on-cannon device within an oval floral border; the Federal shield is below. The whole is superimposed on a trophy of arms and colors with portions of a modified sunburst appearing on the sides. The plate is struck in brass. The eagle-on-cannon first appeared on Regular artillery buttons in 1802. About 1808 it was used as an embossed device on the leather fan cockade, and in 1814 it became the principal design element of the cap plate for Regulars. This plate is thought to be one of the earliest of the post-1821 series of Militia cap plates incorporating the discarded design of the Regular artillery.