Every man who helped a wounded friend to the rear was one less rifle on the firing line. Early in the war, whole squads drifted away from battle this way, and regiments thinned out faster than casualties alone could explain. In the summer of 1862, the Army of the Potomac's new medical director, Jonathan Letterman, took the problem on. He set up a dedicated ambulance corps with trained stretcher bearers and wagons, plus a chain of aid stations and field hospitals behind the lines, so soldiers could stay in the fight. His system was working by Antietam, and at Gettysburg it moved thousands of wounded off the field. Even so, when the fighting was close, it was often still a comrade's shoulder that got a wounded man out.

The two-figure set shows exactly that. A corporal leans into the weight of a wounded soldier, his arm around the man's back, while the soldier walks with a bloodied bandage wrapped around his head. Both still carry their rifle muskets with bayonets fixed, and they're in full kit: blanket rolls, haversacks, and cartridge boxes, along with K&C's 83rd Pennsylvania uniform of dark blue frock coat with yellow trim, sky-blue trousers, and white gaiters. Pair them with Casualties of War, with the Infantry Drummer Boy (drummers often served as stretcher bearers), or with Corporal Shouting rallying the men who stayed in line.

King & Country model CW133. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Two-figure set of a corporal helping a wounded soldier, on a single sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.