The M1841 6-pounder was the standard U.S. Army field gun for twenty years before the Civil War and saw heavy service on both sides in 1861 and 1862 — at First Bull Run, Wilson's Creek, Shiloh, Pea Ridge, and the early Peninsula battles. By 1863 the Union had largely replaced it with the heavier 12-pounder Napoleon, a gun-howitzer that fired a heavier round to longer ranges. The Confederates couldn't keep up. In April 1863 Robert E. Lee ordered every remaining 6-pounder in the Army of Northern Virginia turned in, melted down at Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, and recast as Napoleons. The Army of Tennessee kept its 6-pounders in line through 1864.

The set is the gun itself with no crew — a 1/30 scale M1841 6-pounder with its bronze barrel (the alloy that gave Civil War field guns their characteristic yellow-gold cast), olive-painted oak carriage, iron-rimmed wheels, and the rammer-and-sponge staff laid alongside the trail. Pair it with a Confederate crew like the 'Load!' Confederate Artillery with 12 Pound Howitzer set for a two-gun battery diorama with the 6-pdr as the lighter piece on the right of the line, or place it behind Union gunners — the Union Artillery Crewman at the breech and the Federal Artillery NCO Pointing calling targets — for an early-war Federal battery setup.

W. Britain 31488 M1841 6 Pound Bronze Field Gun. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm crew compatible), matte-painted metal. Three-piece set: bronze barrel and trunnion assembly, olive-painted oak carriage with iron-rimmed wheels, and rammer-and-sponge staff. No figures included. Boxed.