33rd Virginia

 

As it's Independence Day, and because I promised David Bickley, I thought I'd interrupt the War of the Triple Alliance to post some ACW.  This is the 33rd Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was raised in April 1861, largely from men in and around the Shenandoah Valley and was one of the original members of the "Stonewall Brigade" that won praise and respect at the battle of Bull Run/First Manassas.  The regiment then travelled with the brigade to the Shenandoah Valley, where it participated in Jackson's campaign.  In June 1862 Jackson marches his command to join up with General Lee, and the 33rd Virginia saw action at Gaines' Mill and Cedar Mountain.  The exploits of the Stonewall Brigade are well know, so I won't repeat them in detail here.  Suffice to say that the 33rd Virginia was engaged in the major engagements of Second Bull Run/Second Manassas, Antietam, Chancellorsville and participated in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.  The regiment suffered badly in the Wilderness campaign of May 1864 and by the time that Lee surrendered a year later the regiment fielded fewer than 20 men.

When I started painting historicals again last August, I looked at what painted Dixons I had left from the last time I was painting ACW (back in 2013 - see here) and decided to build out a couple of units using those and unpainted figures I had left over.  It turned out that I only had around ten painted figures, in a variety of poses, and so in the usual way I put in an order to Dixon to fill out a couple of regiments, and that led to buying a couple of Union regiments, which in turn led me to paint up all my outstanding Rebels, which then required more figures to be bought top finish off various units etc.  So this is the first of several units I've been working on since last Autumn.  I've spent most of this year working on this ACW collection and the Great Paraguayan War (with the odd foray into Warhammer 40K to keep the boys quiet).

Whilst I painted up a couple of First Bull Run units using the Perry Miniatures early war figures just for fun, my ACW ambitions are very limited (and clearly very slow-burning) - basically just Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862.  In Paul Stevenson's "Stonewall" scenario book, the 33rd appears as 16 figures for First Winchester and 14 figures for Kernstown.  Normally I'd use a GMB flag, but Dixon figures have "cast-on" flagpoles and given the size of GMB flags you often need to cut the pole in half and insert something else to create more length.  I saw that Dixon themselves sold flag sheets which were stated as being designed for their figures and I thought I'd give these a go. The flag is quite a bit smaller than GMB, but perhaps more akin to the size of Confederate flags that one sees in Don Troiani's paintings, for example. 

16 figures.  Painted July 2012 and August 2020.  Flag from Dixon Miniatures.