The Union cavalry's horse-procurement standards were strict. A regulation cavalry mount had to stand at least fifteen hands, be between four and ten years old, sound in body and limb, and free of obvious defects. Dark-colored geldings were preferred — they were steadier on the line than mares or stallions and less visible to enemy fire than light-colored horses. The Morgan horse, bred in New England since the late eighteenth century, became the most prized cavalry mount: compact, surefooted, calm under fire, and capable of carrying a trooper and seventy pounds of equipment forty miles a day on hard rations. By 1864 the Federal cavalry was buying twenty-five thousand horses a year just to replace combat losses. This W. Britain figure depicts a Union cavalry trooper at the trot — the standard transitional gait between walk and canter, the pace cavalry covered ground at over distance. The trooper wears regulation cavalry kit: dark blue shell jacket with yellow shoulder straps (the cavalry branch color), light blue cavalry trousers with the yellow trouser stripe, dark forage cap, the M1860 light cavalry saber on his left hip, the Colt Army revolver in a holster on his belt, and the breech-loading carbine slung across his back. The horse is a dark bay branded "US" on the left shoulder — the Federal property mark for army horses. The figure works as a single mounted figure for command-and-control vignettes or as the lead of a multi-figure cavalry column diorama. Pair this figure with Captain George Armstrong Custer as a cavalry officer figure; with Brig. Gen. John Buford, the cavalry commander who held Gettysburg Day 1; or with Union Light Artillery Driver for a combined mounted-arm diorama. Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31440. From the American Civil War range. Single mounted figure, supplied painted and ready for display.
