A Civil War soldier who lost his ramrod was out of the fight. The thirty-two-inch forged steel rod was the only practical way to push a paper cartridge down the barrel — without it, the rifle musket was a clumsy club. Soldiers who fired in haste sometimes drove the ramrod through the cartridge and then, in their excitement, fired the rifle with the ramrod still in the barrel. The rod flew downrange like a steel javelin. The soldier was then armed with only his bayonet until he could find a replacement — a borrowed rammer from a wounded comrade, a captured Federal rammer, or one pulled off a dead soldier. Lost rammers were a supply problem after every major engagement.

This W. Britain figure depicts a Confederate infantryman at the fifth motion of the loading drill — left hand at the rifle muzzle, right arm raised high driving the ramrod down the barrel with the firm, two-stroke motion the manual prescribed. He wears the Confederate frock coat in gray-blue, olive trousers, broad-brimmed dark slouch hat, the bedroll across his chest, and the cartridge box and holstered pistol on his belt. The standing ramming pose is the most visible and exposed motion in the loading sequence — both arms up, rifle vertical, hands off the trigger. Pair this figure with Confederate Infantry Ramming Cartridge for a matched ramming pair; with Confederate Infantry Reaching for Cartridge for the loading sequence beginning; or with Confederate Corporal Urging Men Forward as the NCO directing the line.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31256. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.