“Just an update. I had noticed, and my good friend and ACW nutter John G also pointed out that the majority of the figures are not Airfix!!! Unfortunately on close inspection this is correct with most of them being Imex (I think). In a hurry to get them photographed before this little country mouse escaped from the city I just took them out of the “Tailiaferro’s Brigade” box and snapped them quickly without looking closely. They are actually from my Confederate Horse Artillery and were packed away incorrectly last time they were used several years ago.

I will  replace the photographs in a couple of weeks time when I return to the city to watch the Sydney Swans get beaten in the first week of the AFL season.”

I am sorry and apologise for the SNAFU.

I can’t remember exactly when it was but I must have been about eight when I was given 5 boxes of Airfix figures for my birthday. They were WW2 Africa Corps, WW2 Germans ,which I used to fight each other, and Confederate and Union Infantry, and the ACW artillery.

I have been a Stonewall Jackson devotee and a southern sympathiser ever since.

The ACW were the first that I painted because I thought they were the coolest. They were originally painted with Humbrol Gloss enamels and over the years re-based several times and given a black wash and a matt varnish, but other than that only a touch up or two. Overall I think they have stood the time well and now form part of my 20mm Jackson’s Army of the Valley.

The were painted up as the “Four Aposotles”, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (even though I only had two), named by Episcopal rector Col. William Nelson Pendleton and his seminary students “because they spoke a powerful language”. These were chosen because red fires further!!!

At the start of the Civil War the guns were turned over to the 1st Rockbridge Artillery (then under the command of Pendleton). Pendleton loved working with these cannons and felt it was a “good sign from God”.

True to their history, both the originals and my models, still live on despite the originals now having aluminium carriages cast to look like wood. Mine  however are still their original mint red/brown plastic. One or two of the crew did not withstand the test of time and have been alas replaced (of course with Virginian Military College cadets!!).

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John return.