Army Men!! Part IV

 In today's post, I will focus on a number of the individual pieces in the Civil War Value Pack.  This assessment will be through the lens of historical accuracy.

I'll start with the soldiers of the rebel army.

It doesn't take a close scrutiny of the Confederate figures to notice a number of problems.

First, all of the figures are clad in what I call 'Senior Officer' garb. These are supposedly rank and file infantrymen, but all of the figures are wearing long officer-style clothing, riding boots, and narrow-brim slouch hats.

All of the figures also have a knapsack strapped to their backs.

In reality, the typical Confederate regular infantry soldiers wore a huge array of different clothing. Jackets, usually shorter in length, were in various shades of gray or butternut, many being home-spun. Same thing with trousers - there were many different variations - some soldiers wore gray or light blue army-issued, others wore loose trousers in butternut, brown, red, blue, pretty much what ever they could get ahold of. 

Headgear consisted of a mix of slouch hats and army forage caps, again, in various colors and forms. The slouch hats were not the prim officer style, rather wide-brim farm-type affairs that could be bent down to provide better shade for the soldier's face.

High-top boots were definitely not a feature of the typical rebel soldier. The vast majority wore whatever shoes they could acquire. As the war dragged on, many of the Confederate troops had to settle for no shoes at all, instead resorting to wrapping rags around their feet, or even going barefoot.

As for the knapsack, this would not have been a common feature of the Confederate soldier. At the beginning of the war, Southern units were issued packs in many forms, but as time went on this practice stopped as the army supply resources dwindled. Rebel soldiers largely resorted to wearing blanket rolls around their necks, in which they carried whatever extra clothing and personal effects they had. These were affectionately called 'horse collars'.

In both armies, backpacks were virtually never carried into combat, due to their weight and bulk. Officers commanded that backpacks be left piled in the rear before soldiers were moved into battle formation.

Doubtless, many of the packs were lost, stolen, or never retrieved after a battle.

One final issue I have with the Confederate soldiers in this offering is that every single figure has the exact same facial features: a long mustache and beard!

Overall, this group of so-called infantry soldiers has the appearance of a company of clones of some brigadier general!!

It is definitely obvious that the mold designer(s) for this set had no clue of what the rank and file Confederate soldier looked like.

Hint: the bottom of the figure bases are stamped with "Made In China". 

That might be a clue.

This is, after all, a $7.99 Value Pack....

Anyway, next post will be all about the Union troops.

Stay tuned...