Lee’s Legion infantry

April 12th, 2010 Giles Posted in American infantry, skirmishers Comments Off


Lee's Legion (raised by "Light Horse Harry" Lee, father of Robert E Lee) began life in June 1776 as a body of horsemen raised in Virginia and attached to the 1st Continental Light Dragoons. Within a couple of years Lee had been promoted and was asked by Congress to expand his unit into a "legion", comprising both cavalry and infantry elements. George Washington envisaged his Continental Army's legions, or partizan corps as they were also known, as being elite formations that could carry out reconnaisance and raids. Lee's Legion served with distinction in the Southern theatre. It was present at Guilford as well as several minor engagements and skirmishes. By 1781 the Legion seems to have mustered over 100 cavalry and 180 infantry. The Legion was disbanded in November 1783.


Uniform sources for Lee's Legion are minimal. There are references to the cavalry at least being mistaken for Tarleton's British Legion, so one assumes that they wore similar dark green jackets. The infantry may have worn something similar, although there are also references to "blue coats with red trim". However, the most well-known representation of the infantry is Don Troiani's painting of a soldier in a kind of purple outfit, and this is what I have followed for these figures (as did the painter for the figures on the Perry website). Where this comes from I am not too sure, but wiser heads than I have suggested that it may be faded blue. The officer figure here is in a different uniform to everyone else - a cut-down coat with lapels and facings. In keeping with the British Legion theme, I painted the coat dark green with black facings. I suppose I could have painted him blue with red facings, but this way he will match the cavalry element when I turn my attention to that. I think you could use these figures for the elusive British Legion foot as well - perhaps in a white uniform.


In the published "British Grenadier!" rules, Lee's Legion infantry appear only once - 10 figures at Eutaw Springs. I painted up both Perry packs, so I have 12 figures; at 1:20 that equates to 240 men which is probably more than actually served in the unit. Never mind. I toyed with the idea of basing them up on close order infantry bases; this would have been a nice look, but the figures are posed as skirmishers and reading about the Legion and it's activities I think on balance skirmish bases are most appropriate. I've been unsatisfied with my indoor photos for some time now so took these outside in the garden; hopefully the natural light improves them a bit.

12 figures. Painted February 2010.





















AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Warner’s Additional Regiment

April 21st, 2009 Giles Posted in American infantry, Saratoga Comments Off


The "Green Mountain Boys" were militia largely in the area of what is now Vermont but which in 1775 was territory called the New Hampshire Grants and claimed by the state of New York pursuant to an order of the British government that the territory was property of New York rather than New Hampshire (Vermont declared its independence in 1777 and was admitted to the Union in 1791). These men were staunch defenders of independence from the control of the New York state's government and seem to have taken active steps to prevent the exercise of the state's authority (taking pot shots at surveyors, that sort of thing). The Green Mountain Boys' founder and leader was Ethan Allen, who in May 1775 led some 200 of them in the expedition against Fort Ticonderoga and other British posts on the Canadian border. Seth Warner, Allen's cousin, was also involved in that operation.


In June 1775 Congress authorised a regiment to be raised from the Green Mountain Boys for service in the Continental Army. Further to a local vote, command was given to Seth Warner rather than Ethan Allen, much to the latter's disappointment. The regiment returned to Canada for continued operations, but suffered during the winter and as a result of a smallpox epidemic and was down to a hundred effectives by March 1776. The following year the regiment was heavily engaged in the Saratoga campaign, notably at Hubbardton and Bennington. During 1778-9 the regiment operated in the Lake George area. It seems that recruiting became a problem, largely due to political interference, and the regiment was disbanded in January 1781 as part of the wider re-organisation of the Continental Army.


The direct inspiration for painting this unit was the website of the re-enacted regiment, here. I was immediately taken with the photo on the main page of men in a variety of clothing, but most of it green of some hue or another. Of particular interest were the light green, pistachio-coloured hunting shirts; I have seen pictures of dark green hunting shirts, for example on the 1st Continental Rifle Regt., but not of such light ones. The photos also show differently-cut uniform coats, some with white turnbacks and some with red ones, and men in civvies or shirtsleeves. So I decided to paint the figures as shown in these photos - a mix of hunting shirts of various shades of green and uniform coats, with a couple of new recruits in civilian clothes or perhaps just a green waistcoat. The idea was to capture a unit with troops wearing a combination of different issues of clothing, but which keeps green as a unifying colour. So the uniform coats have subtle differences in colour (you can't really see on the photos, but some have brighter highlights than others), and the hunting shirts were all painted with different mixes of green. This approach seemed a good one for representing the regiment as it might have looked during the Saratoga campaign - some old sweats from the Canada expedition wearing faded hunting shirts and coats and new recruits in freshly-dyed ones. I went for 18 figures because the Hubbardton scenario in the second "British Grenadier!" scenario book requires the regiment to be split into two wings of 18 figures each (this scenario is at 1:10 troopscale). At some stage I will have to paint a second 18-figure green coated regiment for the other wing.


These are all Perry Miniatures figures. The colours used for the coats were the Foundry "Bright Bottle Green" palette with additional highlights to a varying degree of "Bright Green". The pistachio hunting shirts were painted with "Bright Green C" mixed with a lot of white. The other hunting shirts used the darker "Bright Green" colours mixed with "Forest Green" and some of the new Napoleonic greens. My favourite hunting shirt colour is actually the chap behind the drummer - this was painted with the "French Chasseur a Cheval Green" and "French Dragoon Green" palettes, and is the colour I'll probably use for the 1st Continental Rifles. Some of the breeches and waistcoats also use the new Foundry "authentic Napoleonic" colours - I might review these in detail when I next paint a militia unit; my initial impressions are rather mixed, as quite a few of the colours are useless (either because the paint is so thin, there is no difference between the shades or the tones are simply too dark). The basing has a sprinkle of "bluebell" scatter from Realistic Modelling, which shows up mainly as lumps of blue. I pulled some of this off with tweezers after taking a couple of photos as the clumps of blue seemed far too large for patches of blue flowers. It may be a bit ott, but at least the blue blends in with the general colour scheme of this unit.


This is my last regiment of Continental line for a while. There are a couple of others that I will get around to in the fullness of time, but with over 35 units of regulars I have enough for now. I need to focus on cavalry and Hessians, some more command vignettes perhaps and a couple more artillery stands. And that's when I'm not painting First Carlist War stuff...


18 figures. Painted February/April 2009. Flag by GMB.



AddThis Social Bookmark Button

6th Continental Regiment

April 14th, 2009 Giles Posted in American infantry Comments Off


I wanted to paint another American battalion in a mix of shirt and coats for use predominantly in the early phase of the war. Having painted one such unit in blue faced red coats and wanted to paint the second in brown faced red ones. This unit is designed to be the 6th Continental Regiment of 1776. The previous year it was raised as Colonel John Brewer's Massachusetts Regiment and at some time after 1777 the unit became the 13th Massachusetts Regiment. The unit was present at the Siege of Boston, went up to Lake Champlain, then fought at Saratoga, Monmouth and Rhode Island. The regiment seems to have disbanded in 1781. I chose the 6th simply because there are records of its soldiers wearing brown coats faced with red (or white).


For "British Grenadier" scenarios, I see that the 13th Massachusetts appear with 16 figures at Monmouth and Newport (i.e. the main 1778 Rhode Island battle). The flag is from "Flag Dude" and is one reported as being carried by General Sullivan's "life guard" at Rhode Island in 1778. Whilst this regiment is not Sullivan's guard as such, I have the flag lying unused and thought it might be appropriate for a unit that did eventually fight in the campaign. Incidentally, there is an interesting account of Sullivan and the Rhode Island campaign here. The figures are all from Perry Miniatures, a mix of various packs and with a couple of "freed men of colour" thrown in.


20 figures. Painted February 2009. Flag by "the Flag Dude".



AddThis Social Bookmark Button

1st North Carolina

June 5th, 2008 Giles Posted in American infantry Comments Off





I have been delayed from posting about this latest regiment as all through last week I kept changing my mind about how I wanted to arrange the various figures I have been working on and all those "Southern militia" types I bought at Salute. A large part of my deliberations centred on how authentic it really is to have different coloured hunting shirts in the same "regular" units (as opposed to militia). There are recorded instances of regiments dyeing hunting shirts a particular colour and as the shirts formed part of the kit that was issued to soldiers one might expect each issue to consist of shirts of broadly the same colour. Then again, dyes would often not quite match, different companies within a regiment might have had their own distinct colours, and later units would have consisted of veterans who may have worn their older uniforms. In the end, I decided simply to mix the colours up for this regiment, but to apply a more structured approach in the future.


The units I am working on at the moment are primarily the three 12-figure North Carolina regiments that are required for the Eutaw Springs scenario from the second "British Grenadier!" scenario book. This is the 1st North Carolina. The second regiment will have buff/light brown hunting shirts, whilst the third will be a mix of hunting shirts and scruffy 1779 regulation coats for North Carolina regiments (this regiment will also be 16 figures, rather than 12, to make it more usable). So with the 1st and 2nd Regiments, I will effectively have a 20-figure hunting shirted regiment with an extra command stand. I also have another 20-figure militia regiment close to completion.


The 1st North Carolina Regiment was raised in September 1775. It was captured en masse (with 7,000 other Continentals) when the British took Charleston in 1780, although most of the men seem to have been exchanged within a year and so fought at Eutaw. I was pleased with the way the officer turned out, with his blue suit and white hunting shirt - I wanted the look of a rich businessman or landowner who was wearing one of his best suits under his shirt; as the figure is wearing leggings I had to paint in splatter-guards over his lower legs. Something else you might notice about the hunting shirt of each rank-and-file figure is that the left-hand cuff has a fringe and the right-hand cuff does not - is this really what hunting shirts looked like, or is this a "Perry nod"? The bee-hive motif on the flag is quite distinctive; and I do not know where the design comes from, and sources seem confused as to whether this was the flag of the 1st North Carolina Continentals or the "first flag of North Carolina". More interesting than a Betsy Ross, anyway....


12 figures. Painted May 2008. Flag from GMB.







AddThis Social Bookmark Button

8th Virginia

May 14th, 2008 Giles Posted in American infantry Comments Off







I had not intended to paint up units specifically for the Southern theatre until early next year, but have found myself doing so now pretty much by accident. I think Henry Hyde is partly responsible as thanks to him I had a stab at recreating Guilford Courthouse (the photos can be seen in issue 11 of "Battlegames" magazine) and realised the figures I had were not really suitable. That experience, my visit in March to South Carolina and then buying a load of the new Perry Southern militia figures at Salute have now all combined to send me into 1780s overload. After Washington's dragoons and the 84th Foot I have been working away at a series of 4-5 American units that can be used either for militia or Continental service but specifically for the Southern campaigns - all shirt-sleeves and hunting shirts. I find that the most effective way of painted figures in hunting shirts is to paint a batch in the same colour and allocate them between 2 or 3 regiments. That way you preserve the economy of painting several figures in the same uniforms whilst ensuring that each unit has a good spread of different shades of browns and beiges.


This is the first of two regiments I have finished, both of which use largely the same figures (although the second has a couple of surprises). I sat down with the "British Grenadier" scenario books and worked out how many militia and regular units are required for the various Southern battles. So, for example, the hypothetical "Gloucester Point" scenario in Book 2 requires four 20-figure units of Virginia militia, whilst Cowpens needs three 20-figure units, one each from North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. A similar number of figures are required for Eutaw Springs. So I decided to paint these regiments in pairs, with each pair containing one unit that was more clearly "Continental" and one that was more "militia" in bearing and appearance. The general idea is that given what people were likely to have worn in the South these troops could double-up as required. They will also pass muster for "hot weather" engagements in the North, like Monmouth.


This is the more "Continental" of the first pair, and I designated it the 8th Virginia only because I bought the regiment's flag a while ago and have been meaning to use it. The unit is quite similar to my 11th Virginia from a couple of years back (see here), with the latter's riflemen figures being replaced by a pack of Southern militia. The drummer is from the new Southern militia standing command pack and is one of those rare examples of a "Perry nod": the drum-belt can clearly be seen on the front of the figure, but it ends at the neck and has no reverse. I think I exhausted every combination of brown and cream in the Foundry paint system on these figures. I noticed that the "Peat Brown" palette acquires a vaguely purple hue when you add white to the "c" colour - there was a Maryland regiment that according to Mollo sported purple hunting shirts and it occurred to me that these "Peat Brown" colours would be very suitable for that regiment.


20 figures. Painted April/May 2008. Flag by "Flags for the Lads".


AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Sargent’s Massachusetts Regiment

February 6th, 2008 Giles Posted in American infantry, Militia Comments Off






Sargent's Regiment was raised in Massachusetts in May 1775 as one of 12 battalions of 500 men each. I found a couple of references to men belonging to "Sargent's Regiment, Massachusetts militia", so the regiment may have had its foundations in a minutemen unit. Colonel Sargent's father had been a colonel of militia. The regiment became the 16th Continental Regiment in 1776 and then the 8th Massachusetts in 1777. The regiment apparently fought at Bunker Hill, New York, Trenton and in the Saratoga campaign. The regiment was disbanded in 1783. Colonel Paul Dudley Sargent himself survived a wound at Bunker Hill to become a brigadier and then after the war a judge in Maine.


I wanted to paint up a militia unit that could also pass muster as an ill-clothed state regiment and so be fielded in a regular Continental brigade. As with a couple of other such regiments I have painted, I combined figures from the Foundry "uniformed militia" and "minutemen" packs so that half the unit wears civvies and the rest are in some kind of uniform. The advantage of the "uniformed militia" packs is that the only bit of uniform is the coat and the waistcoats and breeches can easily be painted as civilian clothes. So when painting such a unit the only decision to be made is what colours to paint the coats. I had a look through Mollo and a couple of Ospreys to see if I could find something colourful, a bit different from blue and brown coats faced red or buff. Mollo has a picture of a field officer of Sargents' Regiment and green faced black coats fitted the bill. With this dark green uniform I thought that the figures could even double-up as Tory militia in the south. Therefore, for the flag I needed something fairly neutral that wouldn't scream out "rebels", certainly nothing with stars 'n bars. At Salute last year I picked up several flags from Flag Dude (sold by TM Terrain in the UK) which featured designs I hadn't seen before. This is one of them, featuring a legend "An Appeal to Heaven". Loyalists can appeal to God just as well as Patriots, so this one seemed suitable.

20 figures. Painted January 2008. Flag by Flag Dude. Cornfield by Touching History.




AddThis Social Bookmark Button

3rd New Jersey

January 25th, 2008 Giles Posted in American infantry Comments Off

In keeping with my current aim to paint up regiments which had colourful uniforms (according to the odd deserter or two) I alighted upon the 3rd New Jersey in their 1776 uniform. This regiment is more usually known as the New Jersey Blues, on account of its uniform of blue faced red coats and blue breeches, at outfit that seems to date back to the French and Indian War. A quick perusal of the "British Grenadier!" scenario book tells me that the regiment was present at Brandywine as part of Alexander's brigade in Sullivan's division, positioned around the settlement of Birmingham.

The Osprey on George Washington's army refers to deserters in 1776 wearing coats of "drab faced with blue" and "buckskin breeches". There is a Don Troiani painting of this uniform here. I painted most of the figures who had breeches in buff. Some of the figures wear overalls and for I decided to paint all those the same colour, as if the Quartermaster had procured some ticking for those soldiers for whom there were not enough buff breeches. The regiment therefore is clothed with either buff breeches or ticking, so creating a more uniform appearance (one or two "new recruits" aside). This follows recent conversations I had with others who feel that too much is made of American units being dressed in an ad hoc fashion. There is documentary evidence of new coats being withheld until there were enough to clothes all the soldiers in a particular regiment, so illustrating that officers preferred to have their men dressed as uniformly as possible. I do like these Foundry "uniformed militia" figures as they are full of character. I tried to place them so that they interreact. So for example, in the back row on the extreme right of the photos, the corporal is telling the men to his immediate right (as you look at the pic) to pipe down and get in line.

16 figures. Painted January 2008. Flags by GMB.



AddThis Social Bookmark Button

2nd New Hampshire

December 10th, 2007 Giles Posted in American infantry, Saratoga Comments Off







This regiment seems to have been raised in 1776 and served until 1782. Its colonel was originally Enoch Poor, but he handed over command to Nathaniel Hale upon his promotion to Brigadier. It fought in the Saratoga campaign, and part of the regiment was captured at the Battle of Hubbardton in July 1777. In the "British Grenadier" scenarios currently published, the regiment is fielded at 16-figure strength for Freeman's Farm and 18 figures for Bemis Heights.

The figures used are Foundry marching Continentals. I wanted a "smarter" regiment that those I have painted recently; hence the white tape on the hats and lack of "ragged" Eureka figures. I've had these figures knocking around the lead-pile for a couple of years and thought they'd be best used en masse without any additions from other ranges. I wanted to paint this unit because of the distinctive sky-blue coats - it's not clear whether the entire regiment wore this uniform, but a couple of companies are recorded as having men dressed this way. The blue coats were painted with the Foundry "Sky Blue" palette, with the second and third colours mixed to create an intermediate highlight before the "c" colour was used on its own.

Legend has it that two colours belonging to the regiment were taken by the British at Hubbardton, one in dark blue and the second in buff with an interlinked ring design by Benjamin Franklin. You can see computer prints of the two flags here . GMB make a pack which has both flags and I did some research to see which flag should be given to this unit. It seems that the second, buff flag, has a lesser claim to authenticity that the dark blue one. Various online sources, including the re-enacted New Hampshire regiments, seem to conclude that the dark blue flag was most probably carried by the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment whilst the buff one belonged to another unit. I saw references to this buff flag perhaps being used by the 1st New Hampshire Regiment, so I decided that I would paint up 2 NH units and distribute the flags accordingly.

20 figures. Painted November 2007. Flag by GMB.


AddThis Social Bookmark Button