The red disc on this soldier's Hardee hat is the corps badge of the 1st Division, I Corps, Army of the Potomac. The badge system was a Hooker innovation. In the winter reorganization of 1863 — the same reorganization that improved rations, ended the army's morale collapse, and gave the cavalry its own corps — Joseph Hooker ordered each corps to adopt a distinctive shape (a disc for I Corps, a trefoil for II, a diamond for III, a Maltese cross for V, a Greek cross for VI, a crescent for XI, a star for XII), and each division within a corps to wear its corps badge in one of three colors (red for 1st Division, white for 2nd, blue for 3rd). The system let any officer identify a soldier's unit at a glance from a hundred yards away. The Iron Brigade was the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, I Corps. They wore the red disc on the front of the Hardee hat, just below the brass infantry eagle on the side.

This W. Britain figure depicts an Iron Brigade soldier kneeling in the defensive position — knee down, rifle held diagonally across the body in the "ready" position, body angled forward to receive an enemy assault. He wears the brigade kit without gaiters: dark blue nine-button frock coat, light blue trousers, knapsack on his back, cartridge box on his belt, and the tall black Hardee hat with the red I Corps 1st Division disc on the front. The kneeling defensive line is what a regiment took up when ordered to hold ground against a charging enemy — kneeling soldiers in the front rank fixed bayonets and braced muskets at the position the manual called "charge bayonets," while the second rank stood and fired over their heads. The Iron Brigade held this kind of position on the north slope of Culp's Hill on the evening of July 2, 1863, and through the morning of July 3 — the 6th Wisconsin making a night counterattack to reclaim ground temporarily taken by Johnson's Confederate division. Pair this figure with Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker, the army commander whose corps-badge system gave the figure its identifying red disc; with Col. Henry A. Morrow of the 24th Michigan, the brigade's regimental commander at Gettysburg; or with Color Sergeant Abel Peck, the brigade's color sergeant killed on Day 1 of the same battle.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31292. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.