"Ferguson's Rifles" Topic

Picked up several packets of Wargames Foundry's British Light Infantry in hats to use for two small units I want to help round out my collection.

One will be Frasers Company of Marksmen from Burgoyne's Army of 1777 – the other is going to be for Ferguson's Rifles – Foundary does a prone figure which works well for the Rifle in my opinion.

I am planning to do the Rifles in the light infantry dress – but wonder if there was anything special anyone has ever noted about their dress??

Having several battalions of American riflement which tend to give the Crown fits – I thought it would be fun to field the game for the Crown

Thoughts??

To be honest, I completely forget where I got the justification for this, but what's done is done…

I used the Foundry and Perry British LI in jacket, overalls and pimp hat with plumes (probably the same figures), and painted them green, for my Ferguson's rifles.
I am sure I had a good reason for painting them green, but I forget what it was.
On the plus side, I have also used them as British Legion foot. The fact that they have muskets and not rifles? Oh, please. At 28mm, you can tell the difference?
I like the fact that Ferguson's have rifles AND bayonets.

Have you seen these?

picture

picture

All from the AWI gallery on the Perry Miniatures site. Fantastic job by Pat Smith, in my opinion.

Gallowglass

I had seen the pictures – but thought that they were of the American Volunteers – including the 100 "picked" Loyalists Feguson brought with him from New York

Thanks – drool, drool

Greg

Unfortunately, the figures shown on the Perry website – though nicely done – are wrong. The painter/converter has mixed up Ferguson's Rifle Corps from 1777, the Provincial unit he formed later in the war, and the militia he had with him at King's Mountain. Ignore for your purposes.

OFM is correct about the 1777 uniform – green cloth was sent across the America to clothe the Rifle Corps of 1777; the unit would probably have adopted the slouch (pimp) hat and a plume – colour unknown. There now seems to be some conjecture that only 1/2 to 1/3 of that unit actually had rifles, with the rest being musket-armed (incidentally, the same was true of Fraser's corps up north, with about 1/3 of his men being armed with rifles, probably those captured from Morgan's men during the attack on Quebec in 1775).

The Foundry figures are fine for the 1777 Ferguson corps. The unit at King's Mountain had their Provincial uniforms – the men were drawn from some of the better units and would have been fairly well kitted out, not the rag-tag unit shown in the Perry pics.

There are no figures that accurately represent Fraser's men, but the Perry Saratoga British infantry (the ones wearing leggings) would be close; the main problem would be the cap, which is more like the "jockey" variety worn during the F&IW. Here is a contemporary work of art believed to depict the unit:-

csmid.com/files/hunter.html

(The rest of that website is a mine of useful background info for wargamers as well.)

Green coated Ferguson's for 1777 – what a nice touch of color for my Crown army!!!!

For game purposes I am planning to treat them as I do Native Americans when skirmishing – they get an extra save due to their ability to make better use of cover.

Greg

Thanks, SM. I don't remember seeing that site before.

Captain Alan Lewrie, R.N. favors a Ferguson's Rifle from time to time. He is creation of author Dewey Lambdin. There's probably six or seven books. My favorite writer.

Now Lewrie has a Girondelli air rifle as well. Quite the one man sniper corps. Unfortunately he had to give up command of his new frigate, the "Savage." I too am a big fan of ole "Ramcat."

There is a picture of a Ferguson riflemen in the Osprey campaign book 'Philadelphia'. Basically he looks like a light infantryman in a green coat. With little conversion there are plenty of appropriate Perry and Foundry figures that could be used.

<<Thanks, SM. I don't remember seeing that site before.>>

It's been around for about a decade now, but isn't widely publicised for some reason. The leader of the re-enactment group is/was Christian Cameron, ex-US Navy (Intel) and the son-in-law of Gavin Watt, the renowned AWI author and Loyalist re-enactor. Christian is the author of the AWI book "Washington & Caesar".

Quite a few of the CSM are ex-US and Canadian Special Forces, and they take the "living rough" part of their impression as seriously as their primary research (ie very, very seriously).