On the first Duke of Wellington's birthday, I am releasing a genuinely important podcast on 'Wellington's Unknown Warriors: The Life, Death and Reburial of the Bones of Burgos' This project shows that dead men do tell tales, and traces my efforts to see these men's remains studied, before giving them the proper burial that they undoubtedly deserve. It is a very sad fact that these men are lying in a museum storage facility, and that their burial can only be achieved if funded by charitable donations. (As they died before 1914, they are not eligible for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's program). If you are interested in potentially donating in the future, please DM me or email z.white@soton.ac.uk to join the mailing list. https://anchor.fm/the-napoleonicist/episodes/Wellingtons-Unknown-Warriors-The-Life--Death--Reburial-of-the-Bones-of-Burgos-edfq59
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This is too much speculation, I would leave it as it is and keep the question open and continue to look for other explanations.
Also, if they were a working party they would probably have been wearing their undress uniform so may have been less precious about having the regimental buttons on it. Its obviously just supposition in both cases. But I know from experience how often buttons come off.
I can see any tailor in the ranks gathering what cloth and buttons they could from any source when they could, and then charging his comrades for repairs. So the tailor could have had a bag full of various buttons. It could be as possible as any other explanation.
One thing that occurred to me about the mismatched buttons found with one of the bodies is that given the poor state of repair the uniforms of the British troops often got into it seems entirely possible that the men would have replaced missing buttons with whatever they could find. Presumably there may have been some supply of spares of the regimental pattern but by the autumn this could have well been exhausted. So rather than having collected them for the sake of keepsakes, they may have actually been used to replace lost buttons.