At 16, Scales joined the army of the Confederate States of America and was mustered into service in Company E ("Prairie Guards") of the 11th Mississippi infantry from 1862 to 1865. In September of 1862, he was injured at Antietam ( Sharpsburg) after Manassas. Months later, the Prairie Guards formed the left of the famous Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg where, following the charge, only one man of 39 was fit for active duty. The 11th Mississippi Infantry was captured by General U.S. Grant's forces on April 2, 1865 , after holding and defending the area around the city of Peterburg.

From 1899 to 1919, Capt. W.W. Scales served as President of the John M. Stone Cotton Mill developed from an initial investment of $125,000 by the city of Starkville. The Starkville mill was named in honor of John Marshall Stone a former governor who died while serving as president of Mississippi A&M (now Mississippi State University) from 1899 - 1900. W.W. Scales, Jr. joined his father as secretary-treasury of the mill.

The mill, the first large industry in Starkville, was located midway between the town's business district and Mississippi A. & M. W.W. Scales left the mill in 1919, three years after it was purchased by James Sanders.

W.W. Scales died in 1925 at the age of 79. He is buried in Odd Fellows cemetery in the Cotton District where he worked for 20 years. His wife, Emily Catherine Ledbetter, died three years later in 1928. W.W. Scales had three sons: W.W. Jr. died in 1935, Samuel Webb died in 1914(?) and Hunter L lived until 1968 (age 83).