Fighting Backwoodsman

A long rifle was slow to reload and carried no bayonet, which was fine at a distance and fatal up close. Once the Mexican columns were over the walls, there was no time to measure powder and seat a ball — the fight collapsed into hand-to-hand across the plaza and through the barrack rooms, fought with knives, tomahawks, clubbed muskets, and bayonets. A backwoodsman who had fired his last shot simply reversed the rifle and swung the heavy stock like a club. The whole assault, from the first men at the walls to the last defender down, took under an hour on the morning of 6 March 1836, and its final minutes were the closest and cruelest of the battle. King & Country's figure is that moment — a buckskin-clad defender who has fired his last shot and gripped his long rifle by the barrel to swing the stock two-handed at a soldier coming over the wall. He wears a fringed buckskin hunting frock with a beaded chest band, a dark fur cap, green cloth leggings and beaded moccasins, a tomahawk and knife still at his belt. He is the Backwoods Rifleman's next instant: pair him with the Backwoods Rifleman to show one man before and during the breach, set Santa Anna's Laddermen coming over the wall he is defending, and place the Davey Crockett Set nearby for a hand-to-hand Alamo diorama. Model: RTA161 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set