A Union infantry company on paper held about a hundred men. Its captain couldn't see most of them once the shooting started. Black powder smoke hung low over the line, the noise drowned out anything more than a few yards away, and orders moved down the ranks by voice, one man shouting to the next. That job fell heavily on the corporals. Each company had eight of them, and each was responsible for a squad: keeping the men in ranks, closing gaps when someone fell, and passing along what the officers wanted. When a line held under fire, it was often because the corporals kept shouting.

The figure is mid-shout, his left hand cupped to his mouth to carry his voice over the fight, his right hand gripping his rifle musket with its fixed bayonet. The corporal's chevrons are on his sleeve, and he wears K&C's 83rd Pennsylvania uniform: dark blue chasseur jacket trimmed in yellow, green shoulder tufts, sky-blue trousers, and white gaiters, with his cartridge box, haversack, and canteen in place. Put him at the head of an advance with Infantry Corporal Charging and Crouching Advancing, or behind the firing line with the Kneeling Infantryman Firing Rifle.

King & Country model CW131. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure of an 83rd Pennsylvania corporal shouting orders, on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.