Well I don’t know if anyone can answer this but this is sure the place to put it.
My father always used to say that gen Custer has strait pins put 3 or 4 in a row on the ends of the arms on sleeves of the soldiers uniforms to stop them from wiping their noses on their sleeves. This later became the 3 or 4 buttons on the end of the arms on sleeves.
True?
Interesting.
I always thought Napoleon invented the button ide. Buttons were already on sleeves in the Civil War and Mexican-American War IIRC.