Regimental music was a formal establishment in the Continental Line by 1779. Each regiment carried a drum major and a fife major as senior musicians, with one drummer and one fifer per company beneath them — typically boys of ten to fourteen who had been apprenticed to the regiment's music by their fathers, often the same drum major. Steuben's Regulations set the calls and tempos every regiment was expected to play in unison: "The General" at three quarters before reveille, "The Assembly" to gather the men, "The March" at seventy-five paces a minute for routine movement and a hundred and twenty for the quick step. The drummer wore the regimental coat in reversed colors — coat in the facing color, facings in the coat color — and a wide pattern of drummer's lace down the sleeves and around the buttonholes that marked the musician at a hundred yards. The 1st American Regiment carried this regulation forward into its federal service after 1784, when most of the rest of the Continental Line had been mustered out.

This W. Britain figure shows a 1st American Regiment drummer in the regimental music order: a red regimental coat with white collar, lapels, cuffs, and turnbacks, white herringbone lace striped down the sleeves and around the buttonholes — the reversed-colors arrangement that marked the regimental musician at distance — white waistcoat, buff breeches, white stockings, black shoes with brass buckles, black tricorne pulled low. The drum hangs at his left hip on a white rope sling, the shell painted red wood with the heads roped in the standard pattern; both drumsticks ride in his right hand at the trail, between commands. He beats the calls that bring the 1st American Regiment standing alert figure into the firing line and the standing firing figure into action — the regimental music establishment that the militia drummer's town-tradition counterpart could match for call but not for the formal apparatus behind it.

Model: 16030 / W. Britain 1/30 (60mm) / matte finish / 1 piece set