Bonus pics of the fort

Noted newspaper correspondent/art-teest Alfred Waud sketches the drowsy action as General Grant and General Burnside drop by an early evening campfire to chat with the troops.

 A typical day inside the fort

 "Sour Mash" the cat

A sore-boned cavalryman, just back from a two-day patrol, carries his saddle while a civilian leads his mount inside the fort's front gates, beside which a pair of 54 Massachusetts infantrymen stand sentry duty. (Dang it all, I wish A Call to Arms would have done more 'action' poses, generally speaking; with the 54th Mass. set, we were presented with the usual four poses - only two of which could be construed as "fighting" men - the standing firing guy and the running with bayoneted musket guy. Likewise with CTA's Maryland Militia figures: two loading figures for God's sake, out of the four total figures! Kneeling firing figures would have been lovely. I believe the company's War of 1812/Napoleonic British foot guards were even lamer, with a couple of (yellow cream-ish????!!!!) figures lethargically poking about with their muskets in nearly identical poses and a third figure engaged in something similarly un-martial. If memory serves, this set had NO firing poses - a plastic war crime of which the company's "Iron Brigade" set is also guilty. Unacceptable!) Why am I ranting like this about A Call to Arms? I have no good answer.

Initially mistaken for half-grown boys with slab-like, bearded feet, a pair of hobbits stumble out of the Great North Woods, babbling about "orcs" and "a numberless army of awful, smelly brutes" just behind them. A cavalry sergeant skins his .45 revolver and orders the two to drop their blades. Clearly, toy genres have collided at Supersize Fort Apache.