Tommy Atkins is a famous poem from 1890 in the collection Barrack Room Ballads (1892) by Rudyard Kipling.
It captures well the long lived 19th Century view of the Army and its Redcoats as a job only for the drunken, desperate or destitute in peacetime, but how differently treated, more acceptable and valued they are in wartime.
I WENT into a public ‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, ” We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I: O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, go away ” ;
But it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls! For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, wait outside “;
But it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide.
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap.
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul? ”
But it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes ” when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes, ” when the drums begin to roll.
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints; While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace. For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! ”
But it’s ” Saviour of ‘is country ” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An ‘Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!
Rudyard Kipling
————-
Interesting the line “Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints” as single this Tommy Atkins portrayed on the card certainly isn’t.
This illustration above of Mr Thomas Atkins comes with three others, his Happy Family, all a recent vintage shop find.
These Happy Family cards are a little difficult to put a rough date on – Mrs. Thomas Atkins looks more modern or WW2 than the more Victorian looking Redcoat Mr Thomas Atkins.
The children are equally difficult to date. Miss Atkins with a then stereotypical female job of a nurse could easily be from WWI onwards. Teddy Bears are a 20th Century thing, after Rough Rider and US President Teddy Roosevelt’s discovery of a bear cub in 1902.
Randolph Caldecott ‘RC’ (c. 1902?) original mounted print in my collection titled “Review of the Household Troops -The Cavalry.” A small printed figure of a girl can be found on the reverse of the print, suggesting it may have been part of a book?
Master Thomas Atkins looks like a late 19th Century / 1902 print that I have somewhere of Nursery Warriors with paper hats in the style of children’s illustrator Randolph Caldecott (1846 to 1886). Similar figures can be found in this Victorian Edwardian scrapbook in my collection:
The reverse of the cards , hairstyles, suggest a cheery 1940s or 1950s look.
An eclectic or retro mix of period clues in good several colours printing. Colour half tone dots on the faces may give some idea but then halftone was common from the 1880s onwards.
Who was Tommy Atkins?
The Tommy of the poem is ‘Tommy Atkins’, a generic or slang name for a common British soldier. A term of uncertain origin, the name “ThomasAtkins” was used in 19th Century British War Office manuals as a placeholder name to demonstrate how forms should be filled out.
Some say the name Thomas Atkins was chosen by the Duke of Wellington in honour of a brave soldier that he remembered, an idea discussed the further or challenged at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Atkins
I remember seeing the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre of automata in Covent Garden, London. Some great videos of Ron Fuller and his automata on YouTube. For the love of toys, watch some of these!
After an evening fiddling with Heroscape terrain hexes on my two portable gaming boards, I finally had a suitably cluttered landscape for an interesting solo skirmish game using my recently rebased vintage Airfix OO/HO American Civil War figures.
These veteran Airfix figures had been stored away and not seen any action since the late 1980s!
Landscape and scene setting
First of all, using hexes to cover the two wooden box lid portable game boards, I built a straight ridge (one hex wide and two hexes high) across the centre half of each board topped with grey Heroscape hex tiles to suggest a ballasted railway line.
A strip of blue felt between the two box lids suggested a ravine with fast flowing Hicksville River, too wide and deep for troops to cross except on the railway bridge. This river was effectively one hex wide but deep and steep edged.
This river crossing instantly created a defendable feature that bottlenecked any troop movement from either side.
The straight track from my “Train in a Tin” set (Apples and Pears or Fred Aldous Ltd) was laid along this grey ridge.
A very quick railway plank bridge had to be made. This was constructed with coffee stirrers, superglue and fast colouring with dark brown felt tip pens and black Sharpie pen edging. Not quite an atmospheric American covered wooden railroad bridge but functional enough.
A simple platform was made in the same way for the small backwoods forest halt of the good old AT & PR Railroad to match the tiny wooden railway hut that has featured in several games.
Quieter ‘antebellum’ days for passengers and parcels at the small Pine Ridge Valley halt of the good old AT & PR Railroad, run by the mysterious bowler hatted railroad employee foreground (Airfix Track Gang and various other lead or plastic model railroad figures).
Other ridge features were set up along the box edges to create a pine ridge with some stony high ground and cleared forest with some impassable forest hexes with vintage Merit pine railway layout trees.
These Merit trees were the type that you see in Donald Featherstone’s photos in his 1962 book War Games; I bought some last year secondhand ‘For the Christmas Decorations Box’ – cunning. Indeed the rules used are my hex version of Donald Featherstone’s Rules for Close Wars appendix to his War Games, blended with some of his Horse and Musket era rules for the American Civil War in the same book.
Simple rules a dice thrown at each turn beginning to see who moves first, then who moves second fires first. Basically Move (Melee?) / Move (Melee?) / Fire / Fire. Casualty savings throws (d6 roll a six) to survive were used for casulaties hit by enemy firing only, not for Melee casualties.
Melee was done using the clever Kaptain Kobold dice reduction of my Duelling game, taken from Donald Featherstone’s excellent simple chapter ‘Wargaming in Bed’ in his Solo Wargaming. Each figure in melee is given two life or combat points (using counters or tokens), and the attackers declared as whichever side moves into Melee. Using one d6 dice, two opposing figures battle it out.
1-2 Attacker Hit (lose 1 point)
3 Both Hit, each lose 1 point
4 Neither Hit
5-6 Defender Hit (lose 1 point).
Firing range was four hexes for a rifle or musket, two hexes for a pistol.
Movement range for infantry is two hexes at a time, whilst climbing a hex high hill takes a whole move. Heights of two hexes or more are impassable without any form of adjoining slope with one hex at a time step up.
This deliberately narrows the movement options and crossing points.
Playing 1:1 skirmish level, 1 figure equals 1 man.
The Scenario
The year is late 1861, early enough in the American Civil War for the colourful Zouave uniforms to still be in confusing use and not have quite fallen apart.
The scene is way out into the back woods, mountains and pine forests of America.
The usual timetabled AT & PR railroad train is believed to be carrying Union troops and supplies through the Pine Ridge mountains over the steep and fastflowing impassable ravine cut through the mountain by the Upper Hicksville River.
Before the train reaches the stone edged tunnel through one of the Pine Ridge Mountains many steep and forested rocky ridges, it has to slow to cross the simple railroad bridge over the river ravine and also to pick up any passengers, mails or freight that might be waiting at the tiny wooden AT & PR halt.
Coerced or cooperating with Confederate forces, the AT & PR railroad official (seen wearing the bowler hat) has not warned the train crew that the track on the halt side of the river is blocked by several large tree trunks.
Have these logs ‘fallen’ or been placed there to stop or derail the train?
If they had wanted to, of course, the Confederate forces could have blown up the track, the bridge or the tunnel. This would inconvenience them as much as the enemy. Disrupting rather than destroying the railway line or capturing the train and any enemy troops or supplies it carries is a far more attractive proposition.
Stopping the train and destroying its union troops is the first Confederate priority.
For the Union forces, clearing the track and keeping the railroad going as a supply route to their forces throughout these hostile mountains and forests is the main Union priority.
Being captured for either side is not an attractive proposition, judging by reports of the disease-ridden prisoner of war camps run by each side.
Initial dispositions on each side are about 25 troops each with the option of reinforcements later (3d6 rolled to see which turn these arrive).
A small section of Confederate Zoauves and other Confederate infantry (overall about 25 men) lie in wait on either side of the bridge, focussed and ready, aimed at the Union side of the bridge as the train slows down. A proper ambush has been laid.
On the left side of the track are grey coated Zouaves with red hats carrying a “first National Flag” of the Confederacy, a section of McClellan’s Zouaves from Charlestown, South Carolina.
As the Union troops detrain to investigate and move the blockage, the Confederate troops are ready to open fire. A d6 dice roll ( Detrain 1-3 on left side, 4-6 on right side) was thrown for each section of Union troops to work out where they would detrain. Detraining both on the right, the train provides some shelter from the Confederate bullets on the left. First casualties occur on either side from rifle and musket fire along the river bank.
The Union Zouaves with red caps, blue jackets and red trousers with white spats or puttees are a section of Union 14th New York Volunteers (later the 84th New York Infantry Regiment) known as the “Brooklyn Chasseurs”. They are accompanied by a section of more normally clad Union Infantry. Again, overall about 25 Union troops.
Turn 5 – the train steams carefully away, unable to continue and heads back to pick up more Union reinforcements (3d6 rolled for the when return turn) and how many (3d6 for number of reinforcements).
Union troops can fan out across the few crossing points where the hexes alongside the train line are shallow enough to allow access on or off and across the track. This is all part of building a cluttered terrain that dictates or restricts movement and the shape of a solo game.
Union troops spreading out and deploying onto the left hand side of the train as the Union Zoauves come under fire along the ridge, ravine edge and riverbank.
A bird’s eye view was taken (from an observation balloon no doubt) at a break in the game when the game boards were lifted off the table for a while (Folks gotta eat!)
Birds Eye view of the terrain and dispositions.
The quickest way for Union troops to clear the track was to rush the bridge, despite the risk that they were advancing right into the killing zone formed of overlapping Confederate fire.
A game rule that a man could not climb any height higher than one hex at a time taking one whole move to do so meant that the railroad embankment formed quite a barrier to movement across each board.
Turn 5 – As Confederate and Union troops spread out and exchange fire along the river bank, the Confederate Infantry Officer is killed. Advice is rolled for morale on loss of officer aD6 roll 1 to 3 steady, 4 to 6 retreat in disorder. Troops affected roll again each move until they are steady and able to fire or move as desired.
Off His Own Hook
As in most of these Close Wars small skirmish games, troops shoot at each other or charge ‘hell for leather’ towards each other or their objective, fairly regardless of personal safety and often without much input from officers. Loss of officers does not bring my games to a halt. This creates a good, fast and gutsy game.
Reading the Osprey Combat book Union Infantryman versus Confederate Infantryman Eastern Theater 1861-1865 by Ron Field, this does not seem too unrealistic:
“…the Infantryman usually found himself fighting independently or to use the contemporary term “off his own hook” when engaged in close combat with the enemy. Only then did the true qualities of courage, mixed with a string survival instinct , blend with drill and training in order to define the infantryman of the Civil War from 1861 to 1865 (Field, page 5) …
“However as the Civil War unfolded, attacking forces were not necessarily mown down before they arrived in near proximity of an enemy armed with rifled weapons, but – due to the effect of black powder smoke, which obscured visibility – often managed to get within close range , where they exchanged fire until ammunition was expended. … Despite advances in tactics and technology, and rigid textbook training, the infantryman in close combat inevitably fought independently and “off his own hook” throughout the Civil War as the din of battle and loss of leadership took its toll. Thus, survival and success were dependent on personal courage, and on the drill and training received in preparation for battle.” (Field, Page 8)
” Off His Own Hook” – this is very much the case in my skirmish games.
Reinforcements needed!
By Turn 7 or 8 it was fairly clear with the steady losses that the game would soon be over so I decided to add reinforcements. 3d6 were rolled to see when Union reinforcements would return by train (Turn 12) and how many (15 troops). To be fair, Confederates were given the chance of reinforcement through the safety of the empty railway tunnel – so with 3d6 rolls, 10 more brown-coated Confederate Louisiana Tiger Zouave reinforcements will arrive in Turn 10.
Turns 6 to 7 – Union troops rush the exposed bridge crossing.
Turn 8 (according to the dice) Union troops reach the log blocked tracks on the Confederate side of the bridge. 3 troops on each side are lost in melee amongst the log blockade.Turn 8 – Confederate Zouaves versus Union Infantry.
Turn 9 – Melee on the bridge and amongst the track blocking logs. A Melee of Union officer versus Confederate officer, Bugler versus Bugler, infantryman versus infantryman – saw all three Union Infantry troops lost. Disaster!
Turn 9 – Melee – officer versus officer, sword versus sword, bugler versus bugler, rifle, bayonet, pistol, boots and fists slug it out on the bridge crossing. The Union loses all three combatants.
The lone Union Infantry standard bearer from this unit is left alone on the Confederate side of the bridge and has to race back (Turn Ten) to his own side to avoid capture of himself and national flag. One of the Confederate Zouaves fires a shot and sets off after him …
Turn 10 – The Union standard bearer has a narrow escape back down the track pursued and in range of a Confederate Grey Zouave. Luckily a well aimed rifle shot from a Union Zouave near the old cemetery brings him down.
I found that too many colour or command party troops means that this reduces the fighting numbers of infantrymen, so I deemed a quick new game rule that officers and standard bearers carry sword and pistol, whilst buglers carry a rifle (just like the Herald 54mm ACW Bugler) for firing and melee purposes.
Train crew variously carry rifles and pistols in hostile territory.
When in doubt, playing solo, dice options were written down such as in the Turn Ten picture. Here the small command group of Union Zouaves had the d6 dice option 1 to 2, stay put in / move into safe firing position, which they did, 3-4 retreat or 5-6 move forward into melee / rush bridge again.
Equally a random dice or card option to ‘do nothing’ or to ‘retreat in disorder’ could have been added.
Louisiana Tiger Zouave reinforcements leave the railroad tunnel and head for the bridge. Is the bowler- hatted AT &PR Railroad official under armed guard or not? Is his Confederate ‘guard’ an engineer ready to blow the bridge or just an artilleryman?
Turn 10 – Ten Louisiana Tiger Zouaves appear through the tunnel, making the few outnumbered Union survivors doubtful of whether they will survive the onslaught. Only five scattered Union Zouaves survive including their officer, standards bearer and bugler, alongside one lucky Union infantry standard bearer.
Turn 11 – Some of the few scattered Union Zoauve survivors await reinforcements by train.
Luckily a d6 dice roll (1,2 or 5 no train sound heard or 3,4 or 6 returning train hoot heard) means that the survivors hear a distant hoot and hold on, awaiting the train for rescue or reinforcements.
Alternatively if no sound was heard, a dice could be thrown to see if they stay put or retreat. They stay put, whilst the surviving Union standard bearer is sent back down the track to brief the reinforcements on the train about the situation at the bridge and river crossing.
Turn 12 – When the train finally arrives, the train crew and Union reinforcements come under Confederate rifle fire. Throw d6 for undercover train crew in cab – 1-5 no damage to train crew, 6 train crew hit, throw casualty savings throw of 5 or 6 to survive. Luckily no train crew casualties but already one Union reinforcement is brought down as he detrains.
Turn 13 – the first Louisiana Tiger Zouave is hit (at last a use for this odd figure, a WW2 British Commando paint conversion). Up close these 1970s Airfix figures are a bit rough and ready to look at with obvious mould lines.
The train departs again in Turn 13, before it can be captured and giving space to Union troops to move across the bridge again.
Turn 17 and 18 – Union reinforcements (converted Airfix WW2 Japanese Infantry) arrive to bolster the few Union Zoauves as the Confederate reinforcements of Louisiana Tiger Zouaves cross the bridge and pile into Melee.
By Turn 19, only two Union standards bearers are left after several disastrous melee sessions for the Union and some well aimed fire from the Confederate troops on the other side of the river.
The timely return of the train forces a few of the Confederate Louisiana Tiger Zoauves back across the bridge, whilst pistol and rifle fire from the train crew supports the retreat of the two Union standard bearers. In melee, one of the Union standard bearers is killed.
Turn 21 – Leaving his usual flag safely on the train, the lucky Union standard bearer (from Turn 10) leaps down to retrieve the fallen Union standard, before the Confederates capture this.
Turn 22 – A narrow escape reaching the train for the brave Union standard bearer.
The last shots of Turn 22 ring out as the fallen standard is carried back to the train, which steams backwards in retreat.
This last heroic act earns the lucky Union standard bearer my medal of honour for bravery (inscribed underneath his card base for future reference).
In case there is a sequel, here is how the surviving Confederate troops are laid out. In the right foreground, the lone stone grave on Cemetery Ridge.
Suitably Featherstone War Games photograph of the surviving Confederate troops – ready for another skirmish game if those damned Yankees dare return to unblock the railroad.
PR (short for Battle of Pine Ridge) is inscribed on the base of each of the surviving Confederate and Union troops.
The surviving Union train crew and standard bearers in the movement tray alongside suitable Featherstone inspiration.
An enjoyable game, with a Buchanesque ending, a game which could have a sequel if wished in future. Will the train with reinforcements return to unblock the crossing?
Playing 1:1 skirmish level, 1 figure equals 1 man, I was pleased to get a few of these vintage Airfix troops into action, albeit at Sergeant led Section level (15 – 30 men) or Corporal led Squad level (8-16 men) rather than Regiment or its ten companies of 64 to 101 men, or Platoon level (30 to 50 men). So I had a few more buglers, officers and standard bearers than strictly necessary for atmosphere or the look of the thing. Squads were apparently, according to Ron Field, divided further into 2 or 4 man skirmish groups known as ” comrades in battle”.
Who was that brave standard bearer? If I had had more preparation time, instead of making bridges, I would have ascribed individual names to the colour / command party figures and to the standard Union and Confederate regiments involved.
Postscript
Now off to watch Buster Keaton jousting logs off the track from the cow catcher of a speeding Civil War train in his silent 1926 masterpiece The General … blazing covered bridges, cannons, troops and all. Marvellous clip at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aaWhqGVXILQ
Union troops pile out of the train to try and dislodge Confederate troops who have blocked the railroad with logs on the other side of the river crossing. Vintage Airfix ACW.
I managed to finish my American Civil War skirmish today with my rebased vintage Airfix figures – The Battle of Pine Ridge River crossing – fighting for a railway bridge over a rocky ravine cutting of the good old Hicksville River USA, sometime in 1861 whilst zouaves still had confusing uniforms.
One of the tense moments in the ACW game as a surviving Union Infantry standard bearer retreats to join Union Zouaves down the blocked railroad track, pursued by bullets and a reckless Confederate Zouave. Airfix figure conversions.
Inspired in recent blogposts by the photography website Forgotten Georgia and also the rebasing of my childhood vintage Airfix American Civil War figures, I redeemed a couple of book tokens on a trip into town to fund my summer reading.
My ‘American Summer’ Reading with a few of my 54mm lead and plastic ACW figures.
The Osprey Combat book is especially relevant with the comments John Patriquin made about my confusion with Zouave uniforms being mirrored in the First Battle of Bull Run / Manassas:
“Your post partially explains the confusion at the first battle of Bull Run. Shortly before the start of the Civil War, after Ellsworth’s tour, many individual militia companies started to stylize themselves as Zouaves. These companies designed their own uniforms. As the better organized states would place these companies into regiments of 10 companies, it is easy to imagine a regiment of militia!”
Of course, at the start of the war the states would provide uniforms to the regiments so they would be more “uniform” in appearance. However, each state would decide on the uniforms. Many northern units were provided grey uniforms. Confused? So were the commanders on the field of battle at Bull Run.”
On the same trip, I also found a recent red box of Airfix WW2 British Commandos reduced in price, another toy department sadly slimming their ranges. A chance to paint some more Zouaves to my vintage Airfix ACW troops.
Union Blue – and a bit bashed – all that we had of our family’s American Civil War Airfix OO/ HO Union Infantry troops, a scarce set by the mid 1980s when I painted these. Reinforcements were needed from unusual sources.
I am this weekend I confess – Confused by Zouaves.
I have recently rebased and flocked some of my original 1970s and 1980s paintings of Airfix OO/HO American Civil War infantry, along with some other Airfix WW2 figure conversions to other troop types.
We had very few American Civil War Airfix OO/ HO troops, as they were a scarce set by the 1980s. Reinforcements were needed from unusual sources!
US 1st Sharpshooters (Berdan’s Sharpshooters) a green repaint of a few Union Infantry figures with a couple of Atlantic US cavalry mixed in. Defending a branch halt of the AT&PR Railroad, with the swiftly repainted rolling stock and engine from a “Train Set in A Tin.”More Union Infantry reinforcements, paint conversions from more easily available Airfix WW2 Japanese Infantry.
I have liked for a long time the Airfix WW2 OO/HO Japanese (and Russian) infantry for their slender build and possibilities for conversion to troops from other periods.
The unusual figures of the Airfix WW2 Japanese infantry standard bearer and bugler make useful Union Infantry command figures. These are now quite fragile plastic – the officer has lost his fragile sword. Painted c. 1983.
Sometimes I can tell looking back what (roughly) these reinforcement figures were supposed to be or were inspired by, helped by looking again at Kannik’s Military Uniforms of the World in Colour by Preben Kannik’s and the Blandford book Uniforms of The American Civil War by Philip Haythornwaite. Both books were sporadically available in our local branch library.
Another paint conversion of Airfix WW2 Japanese Infantry – but which Grey Zouaves are they and fighting on whose side?
They were created or converted by repainting Airfix WW2 Japanese Infantry.
I love(d) this page a lot in Preben Kannik’s Military Uniforms of the World in Colour.
Wallace’s Zouaves featured in the few, the very few, ACW uniforms shown in Kannik’s Military Uniforms of the World in Colour, as well as Philip Haythornwaite’s more extensive ACW Uniform book (Plate 25). Text notes reveal the unusual career of Lew(is) Wallace, their commanding officer, who went on to write Ben Hur, amongst other things! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Wallace
But are these 1983 Airfix conversions really Wallace Zouaves?
Union Grey Wallace’s Zouaves from Indiana or Confederate McClellan’s Zouaves from South Carolina? The flag suggests the latter. 1983 conversions from Airfix WW2 Japanese Infantry.
I painted these grey coated Zouaves with a “first National Flag” of the Confederacy with the grey coated Zouaves, suggesting they may be instead Confederate McClellan’s Zouaves or Chichester Zouaves Cadets, both from Charlestown South Carolina.
Kannik notes that these “Union Grey” uniforms faded out quickly early in the American Civil War, no doubt to avoid confusion with such Confederate Grey or Zouave regiments.
No doubt also that many of these fine colourful uniforms would have quickly been adapted to the rigours of whatever could be found or repaired on campaign.
More Louisiana Tiger Zouaves from Airfix WW2 Commandos and Japanese Officer – some of these figures look a bit rough or roughed up, the bottom of the spares box maybe in about 1983?
I am not entirely sure of all the intended regiments of the Zouave figure conversions 35 years on, even looking through the original uniform books I had available.
Why so many Zouave regiments? I wondered.
“In the United States, zouaves were brought to public attention by Elmer E. Ellsworth. Inspired by his French friend Charles De Villers, who had been a surgeon in the North African zouaves, he obtained a zouave drill manual. In 1859, Ellsworth took over a drill company and renamed them the “Zouave Cadets”. The drill company toured nationally, performing the light infantry drill of the north African zouaves with many theatrical additions. “Zouave” units were then raised on both sides of the American Civil War of 1861-5, including a regiment under Ellsworth’s command, the New York “Fire Zouaves” …”
None of the Airfix boxes with their uniform pictures had survived in my family by then, so further uniform notes could only be glimpsed in the pages of the old Airfix Catalogues or Military Modelling magazine and the eye-candy illustrations of Miniature Wargames.
A few more Union Zouaves converted c. 1983 from Airfix WW2 British commandos with WW1 French infantry officer and Confederate Bugler. Rifle butts (becoming or always ) somewhat flimsy.
Converting easily available first version WW2 British Commandos to Zouaves worked surprisingly well, on account of the puttees, soft caps, straps and spindly rifles.
The Zouaves with red caps and red trousers with white spats or puttees probably represent the Union’s 14th New York Volunteers (or 84th New York Infantry Regiment) known as the “Brooklyn Chasseurs”, pictured in Haythornwaite’s Uniforms of the American Civil War Plate 24a.
Equally they could be the red trousered, red capped 1st Battalion Louisiana Zouaves fighting for the Confederacy, shown on Plate 55. Confusing in battle!
You will also notice that the Louisiana Zouaves in the Kannik book look different to the Haythornwaite book – confusing for a young boy with his paints. I needed Confederates more than Union troops as I had few of the original Airfix Confederate Infantry.
Michael Chappell’s colour illustration plates to Philip Haythornwaite’s Uniforms of the American Civil War (Blandford, 1975/85)
Converting WW2 infantry into 19th Century troops?
Such strange figure conversions did not seem odd at the time in the early to late 1980s as these original ACW Or other Airfix historical figures were much sought after second hand. I remember a dealer called “Andy Peddle, Sunnymead …” regularly advertising in the small ads of Miniature Wargames each month for further stock of such loose figures. The price quoted by dealers alway seemed too high on my pocket money or paper round budget at the time – ” I will pay 3p per foot figure, 6p per cavalry figure, 12p per cannon, waggon or limber” advertised one Mr. S. Russel of Wingham. No doubt they were resold for more.
Send no SAEs or payment, this small ad was just one of the Airfix second hand dealers from one issue of my Military Modelling magazines (July 1983). Old lead met scarce plastic on the same page.
To give a comparison, in the same 1983 magazine (cover price 80p) the new Esci 1/72 figures were being advertised for a £1 per box of 50 Esci figures. Soon Esci would have their own range of ACW and Colonial or historic figures but too late for me. I was moving on to Peter Laing metal 15mm at 7p a foot figure.
Atlantic Wild West cowboys painted up as Confederate infantry or Dismounted Texas Cavalry and an Airfix Confederate infantryman for comparison, painted 1983.
In the absence of Airfix ACW, I generally made do with whatever bizarre tiny Atlantic Wild West packs turned up, sometimes cheaply in model shops like Beatties, although these seemed more like diorama sets than gaming figures. The Atlantic Wild West range provided a few scruffy Confederates and 7th cavalry on horses with bases unlike the irritating Airfix horses. I also painted up whatever American Civil War looking figures I could make from leftover WW2 infantry or Cowboys.
A few vintage Airfix Confederates and some running Airfix Cowboy conversion Confederate figures in my handy “Just In Case” portable fishing tackle box set of figures for holidays and working away from home (see blogposts c. April 2016)
I was always puzzled that no flag or standard bearer figure was produced by Airfix with their ACW infantry sets but I checked here on Plastic Soldier Review and there is no sign of one:
Again in 2017, these Airfix ACW figures have disappeared and I don’t think that HAT did a reissue a few years ago. They don’t seem to have been in production since early 1980. No fort or playset reissue ever featured them. Some boxes and loose figures lurk on E-Bay and online shops, becoming increasingly pricy and, for the old 70s stock, increasingly brittle.
Will they ever be reissued again? The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War has now gone by.
A good volley line of Airfix Union infantry enough for a skirmish against the Confederates.
Good to see on many people’s blogs that these charming ACW figures have retained their nostalgic appeal.
My few Airfix Confederate infantry so Reinforcements are on the way!
2017 – More reinforcements!
Recently a retired work colleague kindly gave me an old biscuit tin of 1970s Airfix figures, a jumble of loose figures and some on sprues, predominantly ACW and AWI figures with a few British Paras mixed in. A relic of his 1960s and 70s flirtation with wargames before American railroad modelling took over, I shall unpack this Airfix owl pellet in a future blogpost. There look to be some Confederates and ACW artillery lurking!
I also chanced upon two half price “Red boxes” of recently produced Airfix WW2 Japanese Infantry from a shop closing down its models section (mostly it was all Airfix USAAF aircrew boxes) so I should be able to produce some more reinforcements in the future. USCT US Coloured Troops are one thought, and finally some more unconfused Zouave regiments?
Zouaves troops also turn up in my Bronte gaming scenarios, based on troop descriptions in the Bronte family Angria and Glass Town scenarios – I’m sure all these vintage Airfix figures will find a role in these Imagi-Nations, just with a new standard bearer or two.
Gingham shirts and ticking trousers – the colourful clothes that match the description of some Imagi-nations Bronte fiction Zouave troops c. 1830s -1840s (Hawthornwaite, Uniforms of the American Civil War Plate 18 )
I shall end here, slightly less confused by Zouaves but not much ….
Simon Palmer is a game designer and teacher based in London: “I enjoy creating new and engaging social games for my regular tabletop club that helps disadvantaged students engage creatively in a safe, social environment.” (Bold text from his website)
“As well as the tabletop club, I also design and make learning tools, which I provide to schools for free to help students overcome a range of issues such as literacy and mental health, or just for simple, safe fun. In this results driven world, I feel this is an important missing factor in today’s education system.”
They have a Patreon page for fundraising https://www.patreon.com/harlegames “to help overcome some of the costs involved in making tabletop games for our club … Patrons receive fully designed and play-tested tabletop games, free microgames and get to know they are helping others by keeping the resources free for students.”
I’m not myself a great player of card based games but it sounds like a good project!
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN blog, July 2017.
Postscript
I wish I’d had something like this in my lunchtimes at secondary school! Instead I somewhat monopolised our well-thumbed school library reference copies of Charge! by Brigadier Peter Young, The War Game by Charles Grant and Colonial Small Wars by Donald Featherstone that had somehow survived the school library Political Correctness purges into the mid 1980s.
Georgia! Georgia! Defending the South, some of my surviving Airfix Confederate infantry, painted as a teenager and recently rebased.
Huzzah! I have finally finished in just over two weeks visited all the Counties of the State of Georgia USA on the fabulous Forgotten Georgia website: http://forgottengeorgia2.blogspot.co.uk
Thankfully this was online rather than on foot. (Maybe I should have sought sponsorship for charity for this pointless minor achievement?)
I’m not sure how many thousands of photographs that I have looked at of buildings, bridges, ruins and towns, barns, lots and lots of barns, but I worked through the Forgotten Georgia website County by County on the A to Z listings. Strangely there was no Hazzard County.
After looking at all these decaying or restored buildings in Georgia, I am quite tempted to order this winter some of the old Airfix OO railway building range of plastic kits, now manufactured by Dapol.
There were some innovative conversions to typical American Civil War / Wild West buildings using the basic Service Station, Signal Box and Booking Hall kits suggested by Terry Wise in the Airfix Magazines in the early 1970s (see the links to the Vintage Wargaming website)
These buildings would be a fine setting for my surviving OO/HO Airfix American Civil War troops. Flip open the pages of Donald Featherstone’s 1962 Wargames to the section of rules for Horse and Musket battles and then you’re away …
Drum Majorette, Freeport, Long Island, USA (Image: Corbis / Bettmann) on the Front Cover of Uniforms by Bill Dunn
A second-hand find, this picture rich 2009 book by Bill Dunn is now out of print but was published by Lawrence King.com (a publisher of many fashion and textile books). It contains 294 pictures, 247 in colour.
Bill Dunn is a style editor, having worked on GQ, Esquire and LV magazines. As a result, he brings a different feel to this book than a military historian might. Full of uniform pictures, mostly in colour, Dunn uses familiar film stills as well as colour photos from all over the world to illustrate the very short essay at the start of each section. Overall , Dunn wants to know “why is it a good idea for people to look the same? Nothing sums up the power of the ‘We’ like a uniform.”
The book illustrates the role of uniforms for every job role from Hitler and The Pope and his Papal Swiss Guards to traffic wardens in Britain and Vietnam, from Boy Scouts to bunny girls, from fast food restaurants in the USA to policemen in Korea, from air hostesses to schoolchildren in Japan.
The book is interesting for the gamer or creator of Imagi-Nations uniforms.
One of my favourite ornate uniforms in the book is shown on the back cover – the mystery of who wears this smart get-up is revealed on page 78/79. They are Monaco police officers in their dress uniforms. Intriguingly, one of them has paratroop wings!
Italian Carabinieri and Monaco police officers, shown in Uniforms by Bill Dunn. Left photo from Corbis / Paul Almaty and (Right) Getty /AFP/ Valery Hache.
The captions are both informative and witty in places – the Carabinieri picture is captioned “Giant Italian Police (Carabinieri) in front of very small people in the Piazza del Duomo in Milan.” Pure Slinkachu or model village, this.
The Future section covers Astronauts to Science Fiction films and some bizarre past visions of the future.
Uniforms by Bill Dunn covers equally male and female uniforms, military, police and civilian. Ukrainian female paratroopers (women make up 10% of their armed forces) share the page with Indonesian women soldiers with sub machine guns trying to march on parade in absurdly tight skirts!
Moroccan Army parade uniforms c. 2000 (Corbis / SYGMA/ Robert Patrick)
My other favourite elaborate Imagi-Nations uniform is the parade dress of male and female members of the Moroccan army, c. 2000.
This book sets up such smart military and police parade uniforms up against civialian uniforms of drum majorettes and cinema or hotel Commissionaires to show the similarities and differences. If you’re not in the military or public services, it’s not always called a uniform, it’s called “career apparel” (or workwear).
The chapter introductions are quite interesting. Uniform is something you (have to) wear to show belonging, sometimes to show Authority but paradoxically of also being under Authority – you have to wear what you’re told. It reminds me of many of my Dad’s stories about the importance of spotless kit, shiny boots, berets and shapeless uniforms to a National Serviceman, some of which I shared last month.
Uniforms by Bill Dunn is as interesting to flick through and dip into as Preben Kannik’s Military Uniforms of the World in Colour (Blandford, 1967/8). I am happily reminded of the section in Harry Pearson’s gaming memoir Achtung Schweinhund when he talks about endlessly poring through this library book trying to make lists of which is the coolest and most impressive, the worst or most curious uniform. I’m sure we all did this in our own ways. But that’s for another blogpost …
If you like uniform books or creating Imagi-Nations troops, Uniforms by Bill Dunn is well worth ordering online secondhand. It has some inserting points to make about the uniforms that many of us, military or civilian, choose or are forced to wear throughout life from childhood onwards.
I don’t own many fantasy figures – these fantasy Viking warriors came with the Heroscape game and its hex tiles that I posted about recently on my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog.
Dicing with Dragons – “Long before Peter Jackson made it respectable, teenage boys fought imaginary orcs and dragons”.
Writer and Presenter Kim Newman celebrates Dungeons and Dragons’ early days through interviews with Gary Gygax and others of the Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone era failing to get a bank loan for setting up Games Workshop. It mentions needing to buy the original Chainmail ancient Wargames rules as well as the early D and D books.
Repeat of a Documentary originally made in August 2004 – Radio 4 Extra Debut / repeat, find this at:
Made in 2004 it speculates about when RPG gamers give up, along with the lack of women RPG players at the time. They do find and interview one female “Dungeon Master”. I imagine this aspect may have changed since 2004, as the few female gamers whose blogs I have come across tend towards Sci-Fi and Fantasy rather than Historical Wargaming.
Weird dice and lots of tables: I had the gift of a basic set but never really understood D&D …
Available online on BBC Radio Iplayer for about thirty days till late July /early August 2017, it may well be around in the BBC Radio Iplayer documentary section afterwards. This may not be available to some overseas readers.
After an evening fiddling with Heroscape terrain hexes on my two portable gaming boards, I finally had a suitably cluttered landscape for an interesting solo skirmish game using my recently rebased vintage Airfix OO/HO American Civil War figures.
Man of Tin blog 