North Carolina Light Dragoons

A unit of North Carolina Light Dragoons was first raised in April 1775.  Originally a militia unit, the regiment was the attached to the Continental Army and was present at Brandywine and Germantown.  The regiment was disbanded in 1779 but then re-organised alongside other existing militia units into a new regiment on the NC State establishment under the command of Colonel François DeMalmedy, a colleague of Pulaski who was seeking employment in the South as a cavalry commander.  The regiment fought in various engagements in the southern theatre, including Stono Ferry, Cowpens, New Garden Meeting House and Eutaw Springs.  At some stage after the last engagement DeMalmedy was killed in a duel by another officer.  The regiment seems to have dissolved as a result of the loss of its colonel and the troops were reassigned to other units.

I painted this unit simply to use up my remaining Eureka "ragged Continental cavalry" figures.  I hunted around for a cavalry unit I didn't already have (or which I intended to do with Perry figures) for a while before I came across the North Carolina Light Dragoons.  This unit is not specifically referenced in any of the published "British Grenadier!" scenarios, but I suspect it falls within the 20-figure "militia cavalry" at New Garden.  Information on the uniform for this regiment is very thin. I found one un-sourced reference to dark blue coats faced red, and there's a Don Troiani painting of a "rifle dragoon" in a hunting shirt and tarleton helmet (which is very similar to my Dabney's Legion), but that was it.  I went with the Eureka "jockey caps" because I had those left over and wanted something different to the tarletons/crested helmets/floppy hats that I've been painting recently.

So this is the end (probably) of Eureka's cavalry figures in my collection.  This range has served very well for both American and Loyalist units and I now have 70 of these figures - 52 Americans and 18 Loyalists.  I raved about these figures when they first came out and I can't recommend them too highly.  Even with the more recent Perry Continental Dragoon releases, these figures still have something special to add, as the separate hats/helmets and the mix of coats and hunting shirts enable you to create pretty much anything you like, particularly for state, militia and legion troops.  I confess to a preference for the charging figures, as with the other swords-shouldered pose it's sometimes difficult to put floppy hats on the figures' heads.  I do have one Eureka figure left, which I'm hoping to turn into a personality of some sort.

Currently on the workbench are Perry cavalry and something a bit different, as per the final photo below....

4 figures.  Painted May-June 2017.