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AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Words: R.Neil Smith. Photos by Cyrille Barillot and Alan Perry

An Invitation to The

Part 2

Introduction In Part I of your invitation we worked out that unlike the Confederacy we could stock our miniature armies quite easily and cheaply; painting them is simple and fun; and getting them out on the table is no hardship either . We now turn to figuring out who all these inch-high warriors represent and what to do with them. Strategies If you war game the Civil War, you will never run out of campaigns to fight. When the American Civil War broke out, the two capital cities, Washington and Richmond, lay 120 miles apart with two significant

Above: Perry Miniatures plastic figures. Photo by Alan Perry. Painted by Jim Bowen. The figures seen in the other photos are by; Dixon, Sash and Saber, Perry Miniatures, Redoubt Enterprises, Renegade and Foundry, and are from the collection of Cyrille Barillot.

rivers, the Potomac and Rappahannock, dividing the space between. For most of the war in the east, the question was how to get across those rivers and defeat the enemy in the field; it took five years to find the correct combination of leadership, organization, and fortitude before the Union unlocked the answer. Controlling the arterial Mississippi River and finding the back door into the Confederacy were the challenges in the west. The Union strategy also incorporated strangling the South in the appropriately named Operation Anaconda which sought to blockade Confederate shipping, never quite successfully. The Confederates in the east won the first major battle at First Manassas but were too weak to pursue the retreating Federals, and the cavalcade of sightseers that came to watch them, back to Washington. From that point on, with the exception of a

couple of significant forays, the Confederacy stood on the defensive, checking and repulsing Union ef forts along the Rappahannock. The resultant fighting was often spectacular with the wily Robert E. Lee pulling off some wildly irregular methods of beating the Union armies sent against him; and a rotating door of Union commanders willing to try their hand, confident in their belief that they were the ones to save the Union. Only in 1864 would a scruffy, misfit of a general, US Grant, come along with a simple theorem that finally dislodged the rebels from their limpet-like attachment to the Rappahannock. The fighting was equally absorbing in the west. At first, the Confederates fought stubbornly, pushing into Tennessee and Kentucky and defending the Mississippi from forts at various key points. But they lost New Orleans early , and the

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
Ulysses S.Grant

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aforementioned US Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman broke free from traditional means of waging war, capturing a succession of forts. Losing control of the Mississippi cut the Confederacy in two and prevented the west to east transfer of supplies. Then the vital Confederate stronghold of Chattanooga in Tennessee fell, opening the gateway to Atlanta and the Confederate underbelly. Smaller campaigns swirled around those two leviathans. In the far west, Confederates, Unionists, and NativeAmericans mixed it up in the vast expanses of New Mexico and the Arizona Territory. More conventional forces fought along the Carolinian coastlines for control of forts protecting southern harbours; one at Fort Wagner was the final battle for Colonel Robert Shaw commanding his Black 54th Massachusetts regiment that would later be memorialized in the movie Glory. Smaller but no less vicious fights took place along the often confused border between North and South, particularly in mountain regions. Tactics One of the criticisms leveled at wargaming the American Civil War is, Why fight Napoleonic lite when you can recreate the real thing? That argument has a tradition going all the way back to the war itself.

"It's all a damned mess! And our two armies ain't nothing but howling mobs!"
Confederate POW, Battle of the Wilderness 1864.

The major European powers sent observers to the American Civil War, but they came home unimpressed. The volunteer armies were a poorly led rabble they said, and their opinions still hold sway in some quarters. Perhaps they were underwhelmed by the raggedy American soldiers who looked nothing like their European counterparts, or drill was not being

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conducted properly. The European criticisms were too harsh, however; the Americans were not a martial people but they learned to fight, and quick. Both the Union and Confederates fought using the Napoleonic model. That is hardly surprising given their senior officers almost all went to West Point and the technology, at least in the beginning, had changed little since Borodino and Austerlitz. Indeed, other than the uniforms, when Civil War armies squared up to each other the scene probably looked little different from those historic fields. At Gettysburg, Monocacy, Antietam, and other battles, infantry lined up in regiments with artillery batteries sited alongside and on the high ground, and cavalry often securing the flanks. Staf f officers and messengers galloped around, delivering orders and maintaining communications. Battles too looked somewhat Napoleonic. Artillery softened up the enemy for a while before the infantry regiments advanced in their lines to within ef fective

musket range. An exchange of musketry followed, then a char ge if the firing was effectual, or a hasty retreat otherwise. The horse-drawn artillery would advance with the infantry, firing canister and grape in support. Cavalry fought cavalry around the edges. On campaign, the infantry and artillery marched in columns, usually behind cavalry screens; horses, wagons, and old-fashioned legwork took men into battle. So far, so Napoleonic. But wait! By 1862, there were already significant differences between the ACW and true Napoleonic warfare. Two developments in particular , one strategic and one tactical, made the Civil War a looming shadow on modern warfare. The strategic use of railroads was still a relatively new phenomenon in war in the 1860s. Trains shunted supplies and soldiers around both the North and the South, and railroad hubs, such as Petersburg and Atlanta, became important targets, as were the railway lines that connected them. When planning your miniature campaigns, do not for get the railroads.

The major tactical development was the greater use of rifled weapons, both for artillery and musketry. In the Civil War, rifled artillery could be ef fective at 1200 yards and was especially useful in counter-battery fire. Rifled muskets had a greater impact, not because they had an effective range of 500 yards it is hard to find a firefight in the ACW that began at such a distance but because they were more accurate at short ranges. That partly explains the horrendous casualty rates in Civil War battles and why cavalry charges against infantry were no longer the potent weapon they were in Napoleons day. None of these developments were enough to change the prevailing paradigm for how the Civil War was fought, but they helped bring about later changes that would be significant when industrial capacity matched technological innovation. Moreover, tactical changes followed the technology , perhaps most notably in the greater willingness of ACW troops to dig trenches and utilize fieldworks.

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War of Character & Characters To see the American Civil War from the command level is to find new understanding on what this war meant from both sides and how it was fought. Moreover, to know who is commanding your tabletop brigades brings texture to your wargames and makes the Civil War a more interesting gaming experience. If you wrote a novel about war that had half the cast of characters that commanded in the American Civil War, no one would publish it. On the Confederate side, Robert E. Lee took char ge of the Army of Northern Virginia in early 1862 and transformed the war by running rings around his Union counterparts for over two years. Lee was the ideal of a Virginia gentleman, yet ruthless in his pursuit of

the victory that might bring peace. Serving under him was the redoubtable Longstreet, Lees old war horse; the wildly eccentric Christian fundamentalist Stonewall Jackson; and Lee s bold cavalier JEB Stuart. They were all brilliant commanders. In the West, the Confederate command was riven by factionalism, but still produced very good commanders in Bragg and Hood. The Union commanders were a mixed bag that drove Lincoln to distraction as he looked for the right formula to win the war. He pinned his hopes on the selfcongratulatory George McLellan, who was equipped to organize soldiers but less so to command them; the seemingly perennially befuddled John Pope; Ambrose Burnside, out of his depth commanding an army; Fighting Joe Hooker who was swept aside by Lee at Chancellorsville; George Meade, who won but could not follow up; then Sherman and Grant who did. A wide range of characters served beyond the high commands; cowards and heroes;

drunkards and chaplains; the gallant Pelham; the unfortunate Pickett; the heroic Joshua Chamberlain; the dashing Custer; the noble Robert Gould Shaw; too many to discuss adequately here. Many of those that survived wrote memoirs and biographies abound. Soldiers When you place your miniature soldiers on the table, you want to know that your painstakingly painted wee men are unlikely to skedaddle at the first whiff of grape all that lovely artwork, routing. When two sides are evenly matched, morale often becomes the determinant of victory or defeat. You might think that two newly raised armies might not last past the first blast of the cannons, but accounts of Civil War fighting show a high degree of determination on both sides. No one sacrificed more in the American Civil War than the soldiers who stood almost toe to toe with their enemies, exchanging volleys of musket fire until one side could take no more. Here too you are well served by historians who have

General Grant habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall and was about to do it.
Anonymous Union soldier

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We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youths, our hearts were touched by fire.
Oliver Wendell Holmes spilt gallons of ink, examining how they fought and what made them do it time after time. It is fair to say that the Confederate soldiers had a tougher time on campaign. They had inferior weaponry for the most part, and lacked shoes and food. The Union men were better equipped and

better served logistically . Desertion rates, however, were relatively low on both sides, with a greater increase on the Confederate side when it became clear the South was losing. That means that most men who flocked to the colours stood and fought through the carnage enveloping them. Why? The Confederacy broke from the Union to defend the institution of slavery, but that does not mean the majority of the soldiers believed that. The United States went to war to preserve the Union, but that does not mean to say that motivated Union

Just as I gave the command to charge I felt a stunning blow and found a musket ball had struck my left arm just above the elbow. Fearing that an artery might be cut, I asked a soldier near me to tie my handkerchief above the wound. I soon felt weak, faint, and sick at the stomach. I laid down and was pretty comfortable ... [but] seeing something going wrong and feeling a little easier, I got up and began to give directions about things; but after a few moments, getting very weak, I again laid down. While I was lying down I had considerable talk with a wounded [Confederate] soldier lying near me. I gave him messages for my wife and friends in case I should not get up. We were right friendly and jolly; it was by no means an unpleasant experience. Rutherford Birchard Hayes

soldiers on the ground. AfricanAmerican soldiers fought for respect as men, but they fought alongside many soldiers who had no interest in that agenda. The common denominator seems to have been that all soldiers believed they were defending something - their homes, families, communities, state, and country - and that made them fight harder and stay in danger longer . To read their letters, diaries, and memoirs is to enter a world of courage, determination, and duty. It is worth remembering, however , that your tabletop opponent s men are also going to stand and fight. The key to winning is to find your opponents weak spot and pile in, or try and get on his flank while retaining the integrity of your own battle line, and understand he is trying to do the same to you. Battles The American Civil War saw some of the most astounding and audacious battlefield victories in all of military history , most of them attributable to Robert E. Lee. He started in early 1862 by pushing George McClellans invasion of the Peninsula from the environs of Richmond back to its starting point. Then he crushed Popes army with a bold flanking manoeuvre at Second Manassas in August 1862. At Fredericksburg, in December that year, Burnside walked the Army of the Potomac onto Lee s carefully prepared slaughter field in front of Maryes Heights at Fredericksbur g. A second stunning flank march by Stonewall Jacksons Foot Cavalry demolished Fighting Joe Hooker s army at Chancellorsville in May 1863. Three incredible battles, but my favourite of Lee s battles is Antietam where an outnumbered Lee, his army split in five parts, fought McClellan (again) to a standstill. More Americans died at Antietam than in any other single day of warfare involving this country. Lees genius did not serve him well at Gettysbur g in July 1863 and from then on he was fighting off

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"General Pickett, finding the battle broken while the enemy was still reinforcing, called the troops off. There was no indication of panic. The broken files marched back in steady step. The effort was nobly made and failed from the blows that could not be fended."
General James Longstreet (Gettysburg)

a massive and increasing disparity in resources and the relentless US Grant. But there was still hard fighting to do, most notably at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. In the West, Shiloh stands out as the most destructive and hard-fought battle, but there were others, at Franklin, Chickamauga, and Kennesaw Mountain. On 6 April 1862, the Confederates caught the bulk of the Union army literally napping at Shiloh and all but destroyed it, only to be pushed back the next day by the reinforced and angry Union men. There were other battles equally intense, many of them, and they all reward your research ef forts and provide fascinating scenarios. But you do not need to buy thousands of figures and play to the limits of your endurance refighting the American Civil Wars major battles. You will likely find fightable vignettes in all of them. Gettysbur g, for example, has the Peach Orchard, Devils Den, Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, and, of course, Pickett s Charge. Antietam has the Sunken Road, Dunkell Church, and Burnsides Bridge. Another sunken road saw prominent action at Fredericksburg. Spotsylvania had the Bloody Angle. All of them are accessible to intrepid wargamers. Or you can fight the more limited campaigns; Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley in 1862 springs to mind. That is the beauty of the American Civil War for wargamers; it has something interesting for all tastes and budgets.

Oh, I am heartily sick of hearing what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think that he is going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do. Ulysses S. Grant on the evening of the first day of the battle of the Wilderness, when told that Lee would surely deliver a devastating counterattack I have agreed to go into the service for the war ... [feeling] that this was a just and necessary war and that it demanded the whole power of the country; that I would prefer to go into it if I knew I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through and after it without taking any part in it Rutherford Birchard Hayes

A Final Thought So there it is; my invitation to you to the American Civil War. In reviewing this piece, I noticed three things; I have an eastern theatre bias; the more I study him, the more I admire Robert E. Lees generalship; and overall I have barely scratched the surface of what the Civil War has to offer. But I hope your interest has been peaked and that you accept my invitation to consider the American Civil War as an alternative way of spending your Sunday afternoons: R.S.V.P at your convenience.

Further Reading (where to begin?) Emory Thomas, Robert E. Lee Edwin Bearss, Fields of Honor William McFeely, Grant: A biography Joseph Glatthaar, Partners in Command James MacPherson, For Cause and Comrades On Battles: Gordon C. Rhea, Stephen W. Sears, J. J. Hennessy, Robert G. Tanner

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