Little Sorrel was not a war horse by background. Jackson found him in a captured boxcar of horses at Harpers Ferry in May 1861, intending him as a gift for his wife — a small, plain, sturdy gelding originally called Fancy. Within weeks Jackson had appropriated the horse for himself, finding the animal's calm temperament and steady gait better suited to long campaigns than the spirited mounts an officer of his rank would normally ride. Little Sorrel carried Jackson through the Valley Campaign of 1862, the Seven Days, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. He was Jackson's mount on the evening of May 2, 1863, when the general rode forward to reconnoiter the ground beyond his army's lines at Chancellorsville and was shot in the dark by pickets of the 18th North Carolina, who mistook the returning party for Union cavalry. Little Sorrel bolted and was wounded himself but survived; Jackson, after the amputation of his left arm, died of pneumonia eight days later on May 10, 1863. Little Sorrel lived on as a celebrity, displayed at fairs across the South until his own death in 1886. He stands today, preserved, at the Virginia Military Institute — Jackson's pre-war workplace, where he had taught Natural Philosophy and Artillery Tactics before the war.

This W. Britain figure depicts Jackson in the plain field uniform he was known to prefer over the gold-laced alternatives most general officers wore: gray frock coat with the regulation Austrian-knot braid on the sleeves marking general's rank, the battered forage cap he carried from his VMI days, and high black cavalry boots with the sword at his hip. His posture is the one Jackson's staff officers described again and again — composed, observing, hand resting on the saddle, the calm before an order. Little Sorrel is sculpted in his characteristic reddish-brown coat, deliberately smaller and more compact than the tall chargers other Confederate generals favored, which is exactly how contemporaries described him: an unimpressive-looking animal that turned out to be the most reliable horse in the army. Pair him with General Robert E. Lee — the commander who called Jackson his "right arm" and famously said on hearing of his wounding, "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right" — with Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, the corps commander who remained as Lee's senior subordinate after Jackson's death, or with Maj. Gen. 'Fighting Joe' Hooker, the Union army commander Jackson outflanked in the woods of Chancellorsville on his final ride.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31316. From the American Civil War range. Single mounted figure, supplied painted and ready for display.