Note 131 — Insignia of the Uniformed Militia

This brass, oval cartridge-box plate, with its eagle on a panoply of arms and colors, closely matches in size the 1841 Regular cavalry's plates for carbine cartridge boxes and the infantry's waist belts. Although plates of this design were worn as waist-belt plates, the two looped-wire fasteners on the reverse of this specimen clearly indicate its use on a cartridge box. This was undoubtedly a stock pattern. An oil painting of Capt. George Bumm, Pennsylvania State Artillery, c. 1840, shows the subject wearing a waist-belt plate of this same design.[131]