Vincennes was where Clark's frontier campaign turned from bluff to fight. Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton had retaken the post on December 17, 1778, with a small garrison of regulars from the 8th Foot, French Canadian militia, and Indian auxiliaries; Clark, wintering in Kaskaskia 180 miles to the west, set out to recapture it on February 6, 1779, with about 170 men. The march crossed the Wabash and Embarras bottoms in thaw flood, men wading chest-deep for miles through ice-rimmed water and cooking what they could on rafts. Clark put a young drummer boy on his drum and pushed him out ahead of the column to keep its spirits up. The Americans came in sight of Fort Sackville on the evening of February 23, paraded enough flags to suggest a regiment twice their size, and worked riflemen up to point-blank distance of the loopholes. After a night and a day of sharpshooting that punished anyone who showed at a gun port, Hamilton — already called "the Hair-buyer" for the bounties his Detroit office paid on American scalps — surrendered the fort on February 25.

This W. Britain figure shows an Illinois Regiment soldier standing firing: musket leveled, butt at the shoulder, cheek on the stock, eye over the barrel, bayonet still fixed. He wears the regiment's regulation-style order — dark blue regimental coat with the front turned back to show the buff lining and pewter button rows, white waistcoat under the coat, white breeches and stockings, white cross-belts supporting cartridge box and bayonet scabbard, and a black tricorne pulled low. He works in concert with the kneeling firing figure beside him — the standing-and-kneeling alternating ranks the regiment used to keep a fire on Fort Sackville's loopholes through the night — while the kneeling at the ready figure waits a step back in the line. He holds the same posture as the Continental Line standing firing regular farther east, drawn from a different state's establishment but trained on the same firing-line drill.

Model: 16079 / W. Britain 1/30 (60mm) / matte finish / 1 piece set