2nd New Hampshire

This regiment seems to have been raised in 1776 and served until 1782. Its colonel was originally Enoch Poor, but he handed over command to Nathaniel Hale upon his promotion to Brigadier. It fought in the Saratoga campaign, and part of the regiment was captured at the Battle of Hubbardton in July 1777. In the "British Grenadier" scenarios currently published, the regiment is fielded at 16-figure strength for Freeman's Farm and 18 figures for Bemis Heights.

The figures used are Foundry marching Continentals. I wanted a "smarter" regiment that those I have painted recently; hence the white tape on the hats and lack of "ragged" Eureka figures. I've had these figures knocking around the lead-pile for a couple of years and thought they'd be best used en masse without any additions from other ranges. I wanted to paint this unit because of the distinctive sky-blue coats - it's not clear whether the entire regiment wore this uniform, but a couple of companies are recorded as having men dressed this way. The blue coats were painted with the Foundry "Sky Blue" palette, with the second and third colours mixed to create an intermediate highlight before the "c" colour was used on its own.

Legend has it that two colours belonging to the regiment were taken by the British at Hubbardton, one in dark blue and the second in buff with an interlinked ring design by Benjamin Franklin. You can see computer prints of the two flags here . GMB make a pack which has both flags and I did some research to see which flag should be given to this unit. It seems that the second, buff flag, has a lesser claim to authenticity that the dark blue one. Various online sources, including the re-enacted New Hampshire regiments, seem to conclude that the dark blue flag was most probably carried by the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment whilst the buff one belonged to another unit. I saw references to this buff flag perhaps being used by the 1st New Hampshire Regiment, so I decided that I would paint up 2 NH units and distribute the flags accordingly.

20 figures. Painted November 2007. Flag by GMB.