The musket leveled to the shoulder in this figure is almost certainly French. By 1777 the Continental Congress had contracts running through Beaumarchais's Hortalez & Cie front company, and the French Crown was shipping arms in huge quantity from the state armories at Charleville-Mézières, Saint-Étienne, Maubeuge, and Tulle. The most refined of the patterns coming out of those works was the Modèle 1777, a 0.69-inch smoothbore with a longer barrel and improved lock plate that the Continental Line carried as standard from late 1777 onward. American soldiers called every French musket a "Charleville" regardless of which armory had actually produced it, and the pattern survived the war so completely that the U.S. Model 1795 Springfield — the first arm produced at an American national armory — was a direct copy of it. Washington ordered every Continental-issued musket struck with "U.S." or "United States" to discourage desertion-with-arms; the marked stock was the visible sign of a man enrolled on the long-service line.

This W. Britain figure shows a Continental in the firing posture of Steuben's drill: musket leveled, butt at the shoulder, cheek pressed to the stock, eye over the barrel. The order is the 1779 regulation in the red-facing color of the New England line — dark blue regimental coat with red collar, lapels, cuffs, and turnbacks, red waistcoat under the coat, white cross-belts supporting cartridge box and bayonet scabbard, buff breeches and white gaiters fastened to the knee, black tricorne pulled low. He stands in the line with the Charging No.2 figure on the advance and the standing defending figure holding ground beside him. Across the field he faces the British 43rd Foot in the same posture, shooting back with the Brown Bess against the Charleville at point-blank infantry range.

Model: 16059 / W. Britain 1/30 (60mm) / matte finish / 1 piece set