Last art of the month and a testbed for both my new Leisure Arts colored pencils and the Zebra mechanical pencils I got from Walmart last week. I"ve thought about drawing a Confederate Marine and a Union Marine from the Great War together for months, finally getting around to it after buying a few more art supplies (at least, what was still on the shelves at the time we were there). I tried using one of the new Uniball pens but the lines didn"t turn out so good but using the 08 Sakura Micron worked perfectly, so really it was just the rough teeth of the Master"s Touch Mixed Media pad I was using that was the issue.

Anyway, as mentioned before, we have here a Confederate marine and his northern Yankee counterpart, showcasing the different equipment they use and their particular foreign influence; the Confederate marine, a Corporal, sports a uniform that very much is influenced by the British Royal Marines, being more overtly Anglo-influenced than the Army and Navy which sport a distinct Francophile look in their uniforms. While their tunics are a similar cadet gray to that of the Army, they typically wear blue or white trousers, depending on the individual battalion and regiment. This Marine in particular is festooned with a Mk.1 helmet, based off of the Brodie helmet, and wields a Bellona No.2 Mk 1 light machine gun, a licensed-produced variant of the French Chauchat chambered for .303. The Bellona was unpopular with Confederate troops due to both its open magazine leaving the bullets exposed to the muddy elements and due to an imprecise measurement, the failed conversion of metric to imperial, resulting in the cartridge being unsuited for the weapon thus becoming prone to jamming.

In contrast, the Union Marine, a Sergeant, is dressed in forest green and wears both a German Stahlhelm and a gas mask, belying the USA"s primary foreign influence. In contrast to the Confederate"s puttees, the Yank sports leather gaiters, a sportly appearing foot covering if not quite the best for the trenches. He"s also bearing an improvised grenade pouch, favored by Shocktroops, trench raiders, and Marines who want to carry copious numbers of egg, ball, and stick grenades when on the offensive. And, lastly, he wields in his hands a Winchester 1897 pump-action shotgun, specifically a variant made for the trenches with a bayonet lug; Entente troops, be they British, Confederate, Canadian, or other, came to fear the ferocious power of the 1897, being absolutely devastating in close quarters while offering multiple shots for the user, in contrast to the single and double-barrelled shotguns wielded by the Confederates and Canadians.

Both the CSMC and the USMC saw a fair amount of action during the war, primarily in the Caribbean and Atlantic, which saw Bermuda captured and retaken and so forth multiple times, while Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, and Puerto Rica all saw amphibious landings that all ended in abject failure. The US Marines did succeed in capturing the Azores after Admiral Knight"s triumph over the Anglo-Portuguese fleet in July 1916, maintaining US occupation of the island chain for the duration of the war. There were also numerous raids performed against enemy seaports, the USMC attacking New Orleans, Norfolk, Mobile, Charleston, Pensacola, and Wilmington numerous times as they were important ports and naval bases for the CSA while Miami, Savannah, Biloxi, Tampa, St. Augustine, Panama City, Gulfport, and Brunswick were also subject to one or two raids throughout the war. The CSMC on the other hand, performed raids against port towns and naval bases at Port Arthur, Indianola, Corpus Christi, and Port Isabel in Texas, at Cap-Haitien, Miragoane, Les Cayes, Jacmel, Saint-Pierre-de-Macorix, Saint-Ferdinand-de-Montchristi, Nagua, and Port d"Argent in Haiti, and finally Staten Island, New London, Newport, New Bedford, and Nantucket in the USA. In addition, several battalions and regiments of both nations" marine corps fought on the frontlines, primarily on the eastern front in Maryland and Northern Virginia, where both clashed during the long siege of Baltimore and in the liberation of Washington D.C., as well as on the fields of Sharpsburg where some of the last battles of the war were fought. What might ultimately be the final clashes between the US and CS for over a century, on the same ground where they had previously fought during the War of Succession.