This beautiful and rare Confederate Waist Belt Buckle is perhaps the most attractive of all Confederate plates. There are several reasons for this, obviously it offers great eye appeal, there were few made and yet fewer survive. Still, its most attractive feature is the enormous amount of history that it is associated with. No other Confederate Belt Buckle carries with it such a specific historical record.

The 6^thNorth Carolina State Troops were organized in Burlington, North Carolina by men from Almance, Chatham, Caswell, Rowan, Wake, Orange, Mecklenburg, Burke, Catawba, Mitchell and Yancey Counties. The regiment was assembled and equipped (right down to this belt plate) by Colonel Charles Fisher in May of 1861. The patriotic Colonel Fisher, sadly, was killed at the battle of Bull Run. Colonel Fisher’s beloved 6^thwent on to fight in every major engagement of the renowned Army of Northern Virginia. The 6^th served under Generals Bee, Whiting, Law, Hoke, Godwin and Lewis. In all my years of examining these fine plates I have only seen four that retained the soldered on hooks because the strain of camp and field pulled them off, or if excavated, the movement of the ground freezing and thawing pulls them off. In this case it looks as if it was discarded because of the loss of a hook, because under close inspection, it is evident that someone tried to put the single hook back on, but failed.

The plate was excavated by Winfield M. Sullivan in the late 1960s in Dumfries, Virginia, where Aqua Harbor is now located. There were two others found by his digging buddy, Jesse Curtis in the same location. The plate was recently purchased directly from Mr. Sullivan’s son. The plate has a wonderful patina, still showing much of its original black paint.

Rarely does one come to the market with such a detailed provenance.