Question about breastplate

[banderse]

Recently purchased this dug breastplate from Wheatfield in Gettysburg. Got me thinking about boxplates & breastplates, etc. How did they get left in ground originally? Were these from dead soldiers? Did they fall off? Just always wondered how they were left behind. Picture below:

 

[Salterr]

They were held on with tiny leather pieces so it's possible they were lost in the chaos and also discarded in camps. The breastplate sits right over the heart so it's been said that they were discarded because the soldier had a shiny bullseye on their chest. I sometimes wonder the same thing. I found a breast plate from the battle of Franklin and thought wow what happened right were I'm standing was this guy fighting for his life right here?? Or just bored at camp and tossed it.

The box plate had a practical purpose in holding down the front cover of the cartridge box but again with all that marching and fighting, being banged around in the feild with the cover constantly being lifted up I'm sure they fell off. Those too were held on with tiny little strips of leather.

 

[UCVRelics]

@Salterr is spot on with the breast plate being thrown down by the soldier as it was a very good target. This would really mess up your day.

 

[scooter748driver]

Ouch!

 

[Package4]

Recently purchased this dug breastplate from Wheatfield in Gettysburg. Got me thinking about boxplates & breastplates, etc. How did they get left in ground originally? Were these from dead soldiers? Did they fall off? Just always wondered how they were left behind. Picture below: View attachment 465858

We need to keep in mind that battlefields of the 1860s were not the mowed and groomed fields of today. Much of the Gettysburg battlefield was either farm or fallow field, so the wheat or grass was high. A wounded soldier is going to strip his accouterments off and try to move to the safety of a wall, tree or boulder, if possible. He would keep his canteen and haversack, but most everything else was extraneous. Thus, we find kepi buttons, belt buckles, breast and box plates. The high grass/wheat gets trampled during battle, but springs back up within days, covering all kinds of kit that disintegrates over time, leaving the metal.