Amos A. Button was born on August 3, 1844, in Michigan. By 1860, he was working as a farm laborer in Shelby, Michigan. He enlisted in the Union army on June 19, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company B of the 5^th Michigan Infantry on August 28. The regiment took part in the Peninsula campaign, the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, the siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox campaign. He was promoted to sergeant on January 4, 1864, and to 2^nd lieutenant on May 8, 1865.

 

Button returned to Shelby after the war. He married Lucy M. Pusley there on April 21, 1880. He applied for a federal pension in August 1887 and eventually secured one. They lived in Mount Clemens, Michigan, and Button worked as a carpenter. In the spring of 1892, he reportedly “scratched himself on the hand with a nail” while repairing a neighbor’s house. A day later, the “whole arm began to be painful.” He died of blood poisoning on April 3, 1892.

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