None of these sales included the used supplies repaired and restored in the army salvage shops in France. Salvage was a new note amid the age-old wastefulness of war. After the great battles of the Civil War the countryside was littered with the débris of warfare. The bodies of men and animals were buried, and the soldiers did what they could to clean up by burning the refuse they could collect; but for the most part the disposition of muskets, sabers, cannon, harness, and clothing was left to the souvenir hunter and to the slow action of the elements. After our battles in the World War far more materials were left abandoned on the field than after any conflict of the Civil War, but these materials were picked up and reclaimed for such value as the Army could still get out of them. And the Army found that it could make valuable use of salvaged materials, and particularly of salvaged clothing. The savings wrought by salvage ran close to $150,000,000 in cash value, besides representing a great economy in the use of shipping space in the ocean transports. Whereas, before the armistice, many of the recovered supplies went into the army stores for reissue, in 1919, when the A. E. F. was rapidly dwindling in size, the salvaged articles were sold, and principally to the French. All through France one could see peasants of both sexes wearing articles once of American army issue. Paris might dictate women’s styles to America; but Paris, Kentucky, where dwelt some of the seamstresses doing home work for the great army shirt factory at Jeffersonville, Indiana, had something to say about what French women wore. The French peasant woman wearing an American army shirt, with a bit of ribbon for a collar, was a common enough sight in some of the former American areas. Another familiar makeshift was the skirt made of an ex-army blanket. Even the dumps, on which were thrown materials of which the salvage shops could make no use, were carefully sorted over by the peasants, who sometimes trudged for miles with their carts in order to avail themselves of these opportunities. Extensive commercial sales of salvaged materials were also made. Crushed tin cans sold by the ton as metal scrap. Rags went to the French paper makers and waste wool to the English textile mills. Grease, damaged oats, damaged flour, and worn rubber tires also went by sale. The Polish Army bought reclaimed American harness by weight. A large number of outer uniforms, having shrunk in sterilization so as to be too small for reissue, were dyed black and sold to the Belgian Relief Commission for wear by destitute civilians. Germans paid record prices for grease and other kitchen waste products. The salvage sales in 1919 brought in more than $4,000,000.