"Green Horse, The 63 Foot" Topic

Has anyone attempted to portray the Green Horse? This was the mounted light infantry of the 63 rd foot that fought in the South.
What figures did you use?

Where did you find the mounted 63rd refered to as the "Green Horse"?

Here's one reference to them as the Green Horse:
link

As it was the light infantry company of the 63rd that was mounted and sometimes attached to the British Legion I would use light infantry heads as shown in figure 2 of the illustration in the attached link (page 29). This may not be accurate but it would set them apart.

Two thoughts looking at the color plates of the soldiers. For the British Light Infantry guy – what is the second white strap for? He looks like he is carrying a rifle, so now bayonet belt. So what is that strap supposed to carry? Also, if Lights, wouldn't their leather gear be black? Not a regulation (the '68 Royal Clothing Warrants came out before the official establishment of Lights), but still that was the most common color for Light leather gear.

Also, the text for Brit hats is wrong. Most Grens had turned in their bearskins by this period, and hat companies work a cocked hat, not a tricorne. Lights did not wear civilian hats, they wore modified cocked hats – turned into round hats.

Now that I read the details on the Continental, that description is a mess too. What is a "split" shirt? All coats were lined with white wool – usually a white bay. All bayonet frogs (scabbards) were leather. And why is he carrying a Long Land pattern musket? While it was period correct, it seems a bit unusual to me. A Charleville would be more appropriate. Also, 10mm ball? Does he mean a .69 caliber ball?

My point, I find that entire passage rather suspect. It doesn't seem like it was written by someone familiar with the correct terminology.

The mounted detachment was from the battalion companies, NOT from the light company. The latter served as part of the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion from its formation in 1776, until both Light Battalions were surrendered at Yorktown (other than a brief period from late 1778 to late 1779, when it was part of a unified single Light Battalion). As far as I am aware, none of the British Regular mounted infantry detachments were drawn from their flank companies; all were centre company men.

This should not make much difference to the headgear, since – as historygamer points out – all companies were wearing hats cocked on the left only by this stage of the war. However, it would mean they were wearing regimental coats (shortened) and white belts and small clothes, not the red waistcoats and black belts of the light company.

Is there a primary source which refers to them as the "Green Horse", like a letter from Tarleton or Cornwallis which calls them the "Green Horse"?

I have a small unit of the 63rd using Perry plastics and some horse holder bases using bits from Perry and Front Rank.

I checked my copy of Franklin's book on AWI uniforms and he says the 63rd had "Deep Green" facings, and the plate shows a true dark green. Just sharing this in case it is helpful in painting your figures.

Terry

my point being – if the drawings were so poor, and the descriptions were even worse, it makes one question anything the book has to say.

A 10mm ball is not very big, about .40 cal.. A .50 cal. is often called 12.7mm or 13mm. A .69 bore fires a ball of .63 dia. which is roughly 16mm. A .75 bore fires a .69 ball which is about 17mm. As an aside, what on earth is a "frontier carbine"?

Wow, I quit reading before that one. This is a problem with some Osprey books – some are very good, and some are just plain garbage.

Oh here, he is eminently qualified to write on the AWI period:

link

Not.

I bought that book, and read it. Terrible.

I see the 63rd LI figure is shown wearing the good old red feather; or is that a tuft of fur?

Isn't 'green dragoon' a modern reference to Banastre Tarleton, used for instance in the 1957 biography by Robert Bass?

link

Correct, I've never heard of the mounted 63rd being called the "Green Horse".

link
This is a link to my blog post with the 63rd & horse holders.
It would be good to find a mounted option. The closest might be the Eureka SYW light cavalry that I used as mounted jagers, but even with a hat swap there is still the issue that they carry swords, wear riding boots, etc. So probably not a great option after all.
As it will be a good few years before I get back to painting figures for the southern campaign it's not an immediate priority! ;-)

Getting back to the original question, I don't think there are any good candidates for the mounted 63rd in currently produced lines. I believe what you need is figures uniformed and equipped as British regular infantry in the southern campaign, but mounted on horses. Even if you are willing to accept cocked hats or doing head swaps you still need to find a figure with a musket and bayonet, no sword and wearing shoes rather than boots.

At the moment I am using generic green faced British infantry for the 63rd serving dismounted. If I had to have a mounted version I would start with the Fife and Drum 16th Light Dragoon figures loading and shooting carbines. I'd remove the helmet and probably use a hat from the Perry line as a replacement, and I would cut down the sword to try and make it look like a bayonet. You could try to convert the boots to shoes, but I'd probably live with them.

Old Glory AWI-44, Connecticut Dragoons, are in tricorne and Warrant uniform. They might do with a Kings Mountain head swap.

The AWI-44 look to still have boots and the troopers are waving swords.
As mounted infantry the 63rd don't seem to have operated from the saddle as such, but possibly an arm swap to one of the Perry plastic "at trail" arms? No problem yet, 2017 is all about finishing my Bunker Hill armies where the 63rd were in proper uniforms and bloody well walked everywhere :-)

With a curious fascination I bought the Osprey book mentioned above. I've had a flick through and…oh dear…

But he has to be a good writer -He has been on television .

I think Gnu2000 has caught what they probably looked like.

I was asked by someone recently, on another forum, to pick some figures to replicate British mounted infantry from the Southern campaign, and this is what I came up with – hopefully it will be helpful to folks on here:-

So 63rd on gee-gees:- Slouch hat (cocked on the left only), probably a tump-line/rolled blanket instead of a backpack, one-piece gaitered overalls, and a shortened regimental coat (these were centre company guys, so no natty red waistcoats to convert). There are no easy conversions from the current Perry range; however, I think your best bet would be to look at the last load of Rebel cavalry that were produced (from memory, pack AW 180 onwards), as they have the simpler horse furniture, a choice of right arms, and the basic uniform correct. I've linked you to the Lee's Legion figures, which I think have the right "look", but all the rank-and-file are one-piece castings except for the right arm (which is perfect for your purposes):-

perry-miniatures.com/produc … l4iq7fua81

What you would need to do is:-
1) swap the head for one of the half-cocked hats in the British plastics box (you might have a KMM head, but I generally think these are too big for Perry figures);
2) use the right arms from the British plastic box that are holding the musket at the trail;
3) remove the carbine from the (typically) one figure in three that is carrying it;
4) shave off/file down the folded-down boot tops to give a completely smooth leg from hip to foot;
5) use Milliput/Greenstuff/whatever to cover the pistol holsters with a folded cloak/horse blanket;
6) use the tumplines from the British plastics box.

That should cover everything.

As an alternative, you could also try the Eureka Continental Light Dragoon range, which you can see here:-

eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath … =1&sort=3a

The same requirements apply, but there are two differences from the Perry figures:-
1) as you can see, all of their figures come with a "head stump" that needs a hat – you can simply have the slouch hat from the Perry plastic British box stuck on, use a KMM head (Eureka are generally chunkier than Perry so that option looks better), or alternatively, you can order Eureka's own "soft hats" (option E) which will give you six hats that will look sufficiently battered to be "on campaign" – however, the other two of the eight hats are very obviously tricornes which you won't want;
2) they do standard bearers (which Perry don't) which allows you to just glue a musket into the open right hand – the rank-and-file figures all have a moulded on right arm which you would need to remove.