In November, '63, while my regiment was guarding Belotte's Ford, on the Cumberland River, eight miles from Gallatin, Tennessee, we received midnight orders to proceed within two hours to an expected battle-field. We were to take four days' rations, to be carried by one four-mule team. My company, the largest in the regiment, found it impossible to pack all the necessary articles in one wagon. Coming upon a chest weighing over three hundred pounds, I asked the sergeant what it contained. He replied, "The scales, sir." I told him to throw it into the latrine, which he did, and the box is there now.
Scales and Armor.
1. Helmet.
2. Gorget.
3. Cuirass.
4. Epaulières.
5. Brassards.
6. Gauntlet.
7. Tassets.
8. Cuishes.
9. Genouillères.
10. Greaves.
Finding no battle-field, we turned out for Sunday morning inspection in a beautiful camp in the woods. All the other companies appeared with their shining "scales" and other brass ornaments. My scaleless company presented anything but the so-called military appearance.
Approaching my company, the Major, a martinet, remarked, "Captain, where are your scales?" I replied, "I abandoned them for want of transportation." He said, "You are out of uniform, and I shall have to report you. Have you made requisition for more?" I replied that I had not and did not intend to; that they were a very detrimental encumbrance. Although he ordered me peremptorily to do so, I never did. Whenever my company was inspected by others I was similarly reprimanded, and I dare say the files of the War Department are today full of reports condemning me as a captain for being out of uniform.
Later, out on the plains, where we were less harassed by bureaucracy, one captain after another began to shed, and finally, after ten years' defiance of regulations and orders by courageous and sensible captains, the army shed its scales as a snake sheds its skin. No order was ever issued by any authority for their abandonment. It is the only way in which the army can be redeemed from some of its follies, such as continue to this day in wearing the present swords and sabers, as useless for all military purposes as the scales.
When General W. S. Rosecrans was assigned to the command of the Army of the Cumberland, relieving General Buell, my regiment was detached from Steedman's Brigade of the 35th Ohio, 2d Minnesota and 4th Michigan, and all our officers bade the officers of Steedman's Brigade an affectionate goodbye. On Christmas day we joined the 15th, 16th and 19th regular infantry, with Battery H, 5th Artillery, on the height near Nashville, where we were brigaded with them as the "Regular Brigade, Army of the Cumberland," Col. O. L. Shepherd, commanding.