Massachusetts Company, Gimat's Light Battalion 1781

These 7 figures represent a Massachusetts Light Infantry Company in Virginia, 1781. They are a part of Colonel Gimat’s Light Battalion, which was sent with Lafayette to capture Benedict Arnold.  Gimat’s battalion contained 5 Connecticut companies, 2 Massachusetts companies and 1 Rhode Island company. (1) This Light Battalion guarded Anthony Wayne’s right flank at the Battle of Green Spring, but its greatest honor occurred when it stormed the British-held Redoubt #10 at the Siege of Yorktown. (2)

By 1779, Massachusetts troops were ordered to be dressed in blue coats with white cuffs and lapels. (3) Their black caps bear the letters “L I”, for Light Infantry.  Each cap is also decorated with a red-and-black plume, a gift from the Marquis de Lafayette to the entire Continental Light Infantry.  To show their long service in Virginia (long service was hard on clothing), I painted some figures with trousers, some with breeches and stockings and some with half-gaiters.

The original figures are by BMC.  The light infantryman thrusting his bayonet is a slight conversion from a BMC British grenadier.  They are all painted with Testors paints.

1. pg. 46, A Guide to the Armies of the American War of Independence: Book 2 The Southern Campaigns by Greg Novak (Calumet, PA: Old Glory n. d.)
2. pgs. 145-147, The Yorktown Campaign and the Surrender of Cornwallis by Henry P. Johnston (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1881; accessed at https://archive.org/details/yorktowncampaign00johnrich)
3. pgs. 106-107, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Uniforms from 1775-1783 by Digby Smith and Kevin F. Kiley (London: Lorenz Books, 2010)