The Confederacy ran the first national conscription in American history. By the spring of 1862 the South's twelve-month enlistments from 1861 were expiring, and the Confederate Congress passed the Conscription Act on April 16, 1862 — drafting all white males aged 18 to 35 into the army for three years. The act extended enlistments of men already in uniform and made any draft-eligible Southerner who avoided service liable to forcible enrollment. The system had loopholes (substitutes could be hired; certain occupations and one slave-owner per twenty enslaved people were exempt), but it kept the Confederate army in the field for three more years. The corporal in this figure was either a long-service volunteer or a conscript.

This W. Britain figure depicts a Confederate infantry corporal on the march — seen from behind, the corporal's two-stripe chevrons visible on his left sleeve, his rifle musket carried forward in a ready position. He wears the late-war Confederate kit: gray sack coat or shell jacket, butternut trousers, broad-brimmed slouch hat, the black knapsack with rolled blanket on his back, and the cartridge box and other field gear on his belt. The marching pose multiplies naturally into a column or moving regimental front. Pair this figure with Confederate Infantry at Rest for a march-and-halt vignette; with Confederate Infantry Drummer Marching for cadence; or with Confederate Infantry Company Officer as the officer commanding the column.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31499. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.