Maine Double Armed Private with VMM Belt Plate 1/6 plate tintype of a Maine volunteer with the rare "Volunteer Militia of Maine” oval waist belt plate that was issued to the State’s volunteer infantrymen early in the Civil War. Maine formally organized its Volunteer Militia (VMM) in 1851 and then restructured it again in 1861 when the war broke out in order to raise and equip ten regiments of volunteer infantry for two years of Federal service.