Darren Baker reviews and partially builds the Final Stand Indian Wars Series in 1/35th scale from Master Box.

Read the Review

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

The dead horse might work for a Normandy dio....

...for any dio actually.

Maybe without the arrows though. I don't think the Allies used those much.😉

Unless some SpecOps guys used a crossbow and missed their target and instead hit My Little Pony!

Either way, nicely done!

Well maybe a horse that fell victim to "Fighting Jack Churchill".

Cheer,

Doug Cohen already did a masterful build of this set

https://archive.kitmaker.net/forums/259238

your "scout" is actually Colonel Custer, during his last man standing at Little Big Horn. Custer was known to wear suede clothings

That's a myth that Custer wore that jacket at the the battle of the big horn it became popular because of They Died With Their Boots On, where Errol Flynn was depicted wearing it but that film was made during WW2 and there's many inaccuracies I recommend reading Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell, or watching the adapatation starring Gary Cole.
Anthony

well ... Frederic Remington's Painting of Custer's Last Stand depicts him wearing it, as many other period paintings. i will look for the book you recommanded though

It's a good book I can also recommend Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen E. Ambrose and Killing Custer by James Welch. Both are good reads the coat in question Custer wore during the winter campaigns, including his infamous ambush at Washita in Nov 1868 i say infamous because the 7th Cavalry killed at least 75 women and children.

The scout can be any number of civilian contractors or Army officers. He's missing Custer's long hair and sharply trimmed goatee regardless of his clothing. And the trooper is dressed completely wrong for Little Big Horn though would pass for the 1868 campaign.

I'd be tempted to put the two against each other in a American Civil War vignette of one of Mosby's or Forrest's raids.

Can't be Custer, who was blond, didn't wear a beard, had a mustache and goatee which were closely trimmed for his last campaign, and carried Bulldogs, not a Colt. Also, his campaign hat was a tailor made hat, and his brother Tom and W. W. Cooke had similar hats-- the "scout" on the box top is wearing a different "Stetson" appearing hat. At the Little Big Horn, Custer wore a pair of leather breeches and a blue fireman's campaign shirt with yellow or white trim, purchased by many officers of the 7th Cavalry. His buckskin jacket was left with the pack train, and still exists today. Little Big Horn troopers would have worn the later sack coats, and sky blue trousers, most of which would have had the inseam reinforced with the white fabric from flour sacks. Walter Camp's notes on the Little Bighorn is probably one of the best first person resources for the campaign, and consists of personal recollections and evidence from both sides. That book and Randy Steffen's four volume series on the US Cavalry are probably the best sources you can find for uniforms and accoutrements of the cavalry on the plains. Don't get too hung up on the dates for implementation of uniform changes, as this was a tumultuous time in the history of the US Army, and for many years after the Civil War, earlier uniform styles were worn as existing stocks were exhausted. The Post Civil War years were a time of "belt tightening" and benign neglect for the Army, and it took a long time for new weapons, uniforms and equipment to reach troops at distant posts in the old west even if Congress grudgingly released the funding in the first place. So it's certainly feasible to have seen an 1868 uniform coat on an 1872 trooper.
VR, Russ

The trooper is wearing a cavalry shell jacket which according to Randy Steffon's books as well as the plate he did for the Company of Military Historians and so on dispute the wearing of shell jackets by 1876. It's too short, the button spacing is wrong as is the collar for any style of sack coat. Again see the build blog for the completed figure. Shell jacket which I argued could have been retained through the 1860s but were superseded by the 1870s by sack coats.

You're not quoting any source that I hadn't already consulted. That's why the trooper could even go with the charging Civil War cavalry set for a vignette of one of the crazy cavalry skirmishes of that conflict. He would also work for an early Indian Wars, but the jacket would have to changed for later.

The trooper is wearing a modified 1859 pattern dress coat. The regular army had an unofficial "field uniform" during the post-civil war era. Dress coats, which were made of a higher quality than most blouses (sack coats) were sometimes modified by having the skirts cut off to about hip length, braid and buttons removed from the cuffs and the standing collars replaced by "roll-over" (fold-down) collars. The buttons were usually left in place and can be either side of seven buttons and still be proper. In addition I would identify the "scout" as a buffalo hunter taking an Army scouting job during an active campaign season. Please note the Infantry version (.45-70-405) of the Springfield Breech Loading Rifle Musket (so called "trapdoor) he is holding. These figures could accurately be used in a diorama showing a scene from the period 1874-77. Change the scouts rifle to a Henry and pistol to a cap and ball Colt/Remington and push this era back to 1866? I worked at several American Indian Wars related historic sites from the late 1980s to the early 2000s and I have encountered this question before. Photographic evidence exists and I reference the following: The U.S. Army in the West 1870-1880: Uniforms, weapons and equipment by Douglas C. McChristian 1995. Osprey Men-at-Arms #63 also. I am impressed by this company's research. BTW, T.V. and Hollywood are NEVER an accurate source of details for this period of history. Curiously enough the Three Stoogies are since the uniforms and weapons they are using in their "Civil War" short films are actually Original Indian Wars Surplus!