The bayonet charge was a psychological weapon more than a physical one. Civil War medical statistics recorded fewer than one percent of wounds caused by edged weapons — bayonets, sabers, sword points combined. What the charge depended on was the moment before contact: defenders, looking up at a line of men screaming and running with leveled steel, almost always broke and ran or fired and held. Attackers, taking close-range musket fire at twenty paces, almost always broke themselves. The two sides rarely closed. When they did — the Sunken Road at Antietam, the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania — the fighting was point-blank musket and clubbed rifle, not blades. The six-figure set is the charge in mid-stride: mounted officer at the center with sword raised high, urging his men forward, and five privates running with bayonets leveled, mixed dress throughout — red shirt, gray shell jackets, butternut frock coat, slouch hats and kepis interchangeably, sky-blue captured Federal trousers next to butternut. The animation across the set is one of the strongest in the Tradition range. Stage the charge against a defending Union line — face it off with Union Infantry Firing and Loading at point-blank range, or set it as the climactic moment of a Confederate advance led by the marching column in Confederate Infantry Marching with Flag. Tradition of London model 0902. 54mm scale (approximately 1/30), white metal, hand-painted in gloss enamel. Six-piece set: mounted officer with raised sword plus five charging Confederate infantry with bayonets fixed and leveled, on classic painted bases. Supplied in the Tradition Classic Red Box. Allow 2–3 weeks delivery.
