Black powder fouling reduced a Civil War rifle's rate of fire as a battle wore on. Each cartridge fired left a residue of burned powder in the barrel — sticky, gritty, and increasingly hard to push a fresh cartridge through. After fifteen or twenty rounds the barrel was tight enough that ramming the next ball took two extra strokes; after thirty it could take a hammer. Soldiers urinated into the barrel during a lull to clean it, or used the bayonet on the rammer for extra leverage. By the end of an hour-long engagement, a regiment that had started at three rounds a minute was firing at half that rate. The kneeling soldier in this figure is shooting through fouling.

This W. Britain figure depicts a Confederate infantryman in the regulation kneeling-fire position — right knee on the ground, left knee raised to support the left elbow, rifle musket leveled at the shoulder for an aimed shot. He wears the late-war Confederate kit: gray shell jacket, light blue trousers, dark forage cap, the cartridge box and holstered pistol on his belt. The figure works as the front rank of a two-rank Confederate firing line, paired with standing-fire figures, or as a single skirmisher's aimed-fire pose. Pair this figure with Confederate Infantry Kneeling Preparing to Fire for a matched same-rank pair; with Confederate Infantry Standing Firing as the rear-rank companion; or with Confederate Corporal Urging Men Forward as the NCO directing the line.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31341. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.