A question about Civil War Shoulder Scales...

[BuckleBoy]

Hello All,

I have been hunting a field lately that has produced a good many shoulder scale buttons. I know that the scales themselves were frequently discarded because of their weight and impracticality, but we have yet to find any trace of a scale in the field--just the little brass mushroom-shaped buttons from them.

So here's my question: Did troops have any practical reason to save the buttons from their discarded scales? It is quite obvious, at least in this case, that they did--since the field was never hunted previously. The only activity they appear to have been doing at this picket post site was making round .69 cal bullets with a mold.

Regards,

Buckleboy

 

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[ivan salis]

buttons were useful and scarce --they could be used / or used for trade -- the shoulder bars (scales) were useless thus ditched -- think about lose a button of your uniform? having a "replacement" button was handy to have on hand to fix the problem-- Ivan

 

[wildrider]

The little mushroom part was sewn onto the uniform itself and the scale portion was then interchangible on or off of the uniform. From all photos, drawings you see, most of the scales are off. My feeling is, the "mushroom" parts are often found because they get loosened up by the shouldering and unshouldering of rifles and probably just fall off when they get loose enough to not stay on.

PM me your phone number and maybe we can all get together and yak sometime.

Burt