Works of Art

Remington was an avid student of the history of the early trans-Mississippi West, and this bronze group of Dragoons, the soldiers and horses of the 1850s who patrolled the plains west and north from Fort Leavenworth, is notable for its accuracy of detail. The buckskin footgear on the central soldier, for example, had been described to him by an aged veteran from Missouri who had actually participated in skirmishes such as the one depicted here in Remington’s spirited bronze. The veteran recalled how buckskin, though not regulation army dress, was a necessitiy on the early frontier, where ordinary cloth uniforms quickly wore out and could not be easily replaced. Remington treasured such historic testimony. The version of the bronze shown here is one of only three lifetime casts; in all, only six casts seem to have been made of this work. This cast is unique in terms of its fine texture and meticulous detail; the other lifetime versions in museum collections differ from this one in significant ways. This bronze is also the only version inscribed with the copyright date of 1905. Although it does not seem to bear a cast number, photographs taken in Remington’s studio at the time clearly indicate this example as an early version, perhaps the very first. Cast #1 has so far remained unlocated, and it is highly likely that this cast, by far the most fussy and detailed of all the versions, was the first one made.