ACW Battle of Cross Keys. 8th June 1862 - The Battle

 

The early action was centered around the 8th New York who reached the foot of Pence House Hill before receiving volleys from 2 Confederate regiments. They were fortunate to save 5 of 6 hits but left them disordered.

Using their initiative the 8th New York managed to pull back to safety but not before taking more casualties causing them to be shaken.

Continued - 

ACW Battle of Cross Keys. 8th June 1862 - Introduction

This is the 6th Scenario from the "STONEWALL" Guns at Gettysburg Scenarios Book 4. I have added the label "ACW Battles Stonewall" on the right where you will find the other 5 scenarios. 

In the previous scenarios GaG rules were used but here I will be using Black Powder 2 for the first time with amendments from the "Glory, Hallelujah!" supplement. Conversion was relatively straightforward with only minor adjustments in unit sizes. 

BACKGROUND

Having achieved his aims of diverting Union troops from the Richmond theatre, Jackson considered the Valley campaign at an end. Lee gave Jackson several options, stating that Whiting's Division was on the way to join him and that he should join the main army at Richmond. He also gave him the option to strike a blow on the Federals.

The same day Lee issued these orders, Jackson's camp at Port Republic came under attack. A raiding force had been sent by Shields to seize the bridge but had been driven off although Jackson had nearly been captured. Fremont's Union army marching from Harrisonburg to the north-west intended attacking Jackson from this position.

With the possibility of getting caught between two Union armies, Jackson began getting his troops out of Port Republic. Meanwhile, Ewell organised a stand against Fremont on Mill Creek Ridge in the vicinity of Cross Keys Tavern.

Fremont decided that he would attack the Confederate right and attempted to conform his own line to that of Ewell's.

The game will be played on a 4'6" x 3'0" table using Baccus' 6mm figures. 

Continued -

Gettysburg: Turns 25 - 26

 The Round Tops

The Union have now formed 2 clear lines to defend the Union southern flank. The single heroic battery in the upper middle of the photo suffered heavy casualties from rifle fire but once again pumped a round of canister into another Confederate brigade, this time that of Wright from Anderson's Division. The casualties it inflicted took the brigade past the 50% dispersal morale check point which it failed and dispersed from the field.  

In the foreground, the rallied Graham's Brigade, and the only survivor of Birney's Division, stood its lonely ground and fired into the advancing Confederates.

The loss of Wright's Brigade generated a divisional morale check for Anderson's Division which it failed. The division will retire broken in the next turn which is bad news indeed for the Confederates. This consists of troops in the upper middle and right of the photo which were to have provided the main thrust towards Cemetery Ridge.

Continued -

Gettysburg: Turns 19 - 24

 The Round Tops

Turn 19. The Confederate brigade of Kershaw supported by Barksdale's Brigade, charges the brigades of Tilton and Burbank (middle left of photo). Burbank has recoiled prior to impact but the small brigade of Tilton (just 12 surviving figures) receives the charge. In the ensuing melee Tilton is destroyed but has prevented Kershaw from inflicting more damage for the time being at least.

Elsewhere, fire is exchanged with troops on Little Round Top. 

Newton's Division continues to snake their way to the front.

Continued -

Gettysburg: Turns 13 - 18

 The Round Tops

Hood's and McLaws Divisions begin to cross Plum Run capitalising on the collapsing Union morale. 

On Big Round Top (bottom right), a charge by Benning's Brigade is enough to unsettle Graham's Brigade already battered from the fighting in and around the Peach Orchard. It retreats before contact and in so doing brings it into contact with the large Ward's Brigade who had been defending Little Round Top. Ward failed his morale test and they too retreated. Fortunately for them, Birney managed to rally the Brigade but Graham will continue retreating.

Continued -

Gettysburg: Turns 7 - 12

 The Round Tops

The final collapse of the Union defence of the Peach Orchard arrives when the pursuing Wofford's Brigade utterly mauls the retreating Burling's Union Brigade causing them to rout with heavy loss.

Humphrey's Brigade continues to survive, but only just, to the north of the Trostle farmhouse. The routing Burling's Brigade unsettles Carr's Brigade (nearest the camera) who fail their rally test and rout. Humphrey himself rallies Brewster's Brigade to the rear and again passes a Divisional morale test.

Continued -

Gettysburg: Turns 1 - 6

Examining the initial deployments gives an appreciation how difficult this is going to be for Lee. His initial intention of delivering a right hook turning the Union's left flank appears to be the most obvious route at this stage. Sickles Corps is exposed in advance of the main Union army running in a line from Devil's Den, across The Wheatfield and Peach Orchard, and anchoring its right flank near the Codori farm.

Longstreet's Corps (minus Pickett's Division who has yet to arrive) reinforced by Anderson's Division are tasked with delivering this outcome.

Ewell's Corps will demonstrate against Cemetery Hill and Culps Hill with Johnson's Division making the main assault on Culps Hill from the east.

A.P. Hill's Corps are to be held in reserve.

Peach Orchard and The Wheatfield

The opening move sees Longstreet's Corps move off Seminary Ridge with Hood's Division in the bottom left. An artillery barrage opens fire from the ridge.

In turn 2 at The Wheatfield, Trobriand's Brigade (middle of photo) suffers from an effective volley from the advancing Kershaw's Brigade (upper left), but even more importantly a double '6' rolled by an artillery battery. The result causes Birney to suffer a light wound and will be out of action for a turn, and Trobriand's Brigade loses a total of 11 figures. His brigade "goes to ground".

Continued -

Gettysburg: Introduction

This is the Day 2 scenario deployment taken from the original Fire & Fury rulebook. All the orders of battle are a direct transfer to Guns at Gettysburg rules. I had originally based my 6mm ACW for F&F but with 6 infantry figures to a base rather than 3 x 15mm and the base frontage reduced to 15mm. A simple matter therefore of retaining the number of bases exactly but using figure numbers rather than bases for casualties etc.

With figure bases being 60% of the 15mm size I reduced the table size by a similar amount allowing for my 9" square terrain bases. This provided for an 8'3" x 3'9" size widening to 4'6" east of Culps Hill. Some slight adjustments have been made to cater for my terrain but otherwise a direct copy of that provided in the rulebook.

I agonised for some time whether to play from day 1 but decided to fall back on my long term ambition of playing the large action as depicted in the rules. Given the speed in which I play through a large game, to play day 1 as well would take me eons to complete the entire thing! 

Day 2 fired my imagination on acquiring F&F in the 90's but at the time my collection was almost universally 15mm. A 14' long table was never going to be an option in that scale. 6mm though opened up this up as a real possibility, and hence the long awaited game will now be played.

I will not be playing day 2 as a standalone game as in the book, but will continue into day 3 if not concluded. Start and finish times will remain, these being 1300 - 2000 on day 2, and 1100 - 1700 on day 3. Orbats for day 3 will be whatever survives from day 2.

In F&F each move is 30 minutes. GaG use slightly slower movement speeds and given the differences in the way they play, I have fallen back on the same timescale I use in General de Brigade. i.e. 15 minutes per turn. This equates to 28 turns for day 2 and 24 turns for day 3. This also improves the possibility of a conclusive outcome.

Continued -

ACW: The Battle of 1st Winchester

1st Winchester

15th May 1862

Rules: Guns at Gettysburg

Table Size: 6' x 4'

Figures: 6mm Baccus

Orders of Battle:

Continued -

The Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) Day 2.

We now move on to Day 2 with the arrival of Hooker's and Richardson's divisions reinforcing the beleaguered Union troops. Both sides lost an equal number of casualties during Day 1 and with half of those returning overnight losses amounted to 106 overall each.

The revised orders of battle for Day 2:

Continued - 

The Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) Day 1.

Next up on my ACW project is the Battle of Seven Pines, also known as Fair Oaks. The scenario is taken from the Fire & Fury Great Eastern Battles Scenario Book. Once again I shall be using the Guns at Gettysburg rules by David Brown.

Conversion is relatively straight forward. I simply replace a F&F stand, typically of 3 x 15mm figures, with a 6 figure stand of 6mm. The base frontage is 15mm, 60% that of F&F's 1" or 25mm. 

This reduced the size of the 6' x 6' board in F&F to 3'7" x 3'7" or the closest for my boards of 3'9" x 3'9". The other change I had to make was the number of turns. Movement distances of 6mm figures in GaG rules are roughly 30% of the 15mm figures in F&F. It takes twice as long to cover the same ground and therefore the number of moves are doubled to that in the scenario.

Units in GaG are at battalion level and thus I introduced a few minor changes to reflect the fact that this will be at brigade level. Primarily around Brigade attack columns with a minimum of 2 stands in each of 3 lines to constitute such a column. Where brigades are too small to form their own attack columns they can combine with other brigades to form what is essentially a division attack column.

This is a two day battle with Day 1 consisting of 28 moves including 2 twilight moves. There is one special night move followed by 36 moves in Day 2.

The map shows the situation at 1.00 p.m. on 31st May 1862. The darker green represents wooded areas and the dotted line is the dividing line for the overnight turn. The letters around the edge of the map indicate entry points - more of that later.. X and Z are targets for capture. All streams are flooded preventing artillery from crossing. All other units may cross at any point but suffer a movement penalty. Any unit defending a stream against a charging unit receive a bonus +1 in melee.

Continued - 

ACW 6mm: The Battle of Front Royal

FRONT ROYAL

23rd May 1862

This scenario is taken from the Guns at Gettysburg Scenarios Book 4 "Stonewall". 

Background

Jackson, reinforced by Ewell's command, sought to force Bank's army from its position at Strasburg by outflanking his position at the northern end of the Massanutten Mountain at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah. Covering this approach was a Federal garrison under Colonel Kenly.

Victory Conditions

Confederate: Capture 2 bridges intact.

Union: Prevent the Confederates from achieving their victory conditions.

ORBATS

Table size 3'9" x 2'3"

Figures: 6mm Baccus

Rules: Guns at Gettysburg

An overview at the start of the battle with initial dispositions. 

Continued -

ACW 6mm: The Battle of McDowell

Hot on the heels of Big Bethel I decided to play out another ACW battle but this time from a Guns at Gettysburg scenario book. 

One of my ACW projects is to work through the GaG Scenario book 4, "Stonewall, The Battles of General T.J. Jackson CSA". My next scenario (#3 in the book) is the Battle of McDowell, 8th May 1862. 

The book recommends table sizes of 6' x 4' or 5' x 3' for 10mm or 15mm figures. When scaling down for 6mm I have born in mind my base sizes and movement rates. GaG recommends basing figures 4 to a base with each figure on an 8mm - 12mm frontage depending on your personal preference. Taking the 10mm average this will give a base frontage of 20mm compared to my 15mm with 6 figures to a base. I have therefore increased by 50% the number of figures listed in the scenario orbats.

Now comes the beauty of 6mm if you are short on space. I have taken the smaller table of 5' x 3' and reduced that by 25% to match the footprint of my figure bases. This translates to 3'9" x 2'3" which corresponds with my 9" terrain tiles. If you are really short on space there should be no problem reducing that further still to 3' x 2'. Over 600 figures will be on the table!

Another factor I had to look at was game length. This scenario gives a game length of 12 turns. I factored in the movement rates for 6mm (as with General de Brigade, the rules give alternative movement rates for 28mm in inches. I take this scale but use cms instead of inches). I also allowed a little for my different Command and Control system which can take units a little longer to traverse battlefields. I therefore increased the number of turns by 25% giving 16 turns for my game.

On to the game:

ACW 6mm: The Battle of Big Bethel

This game is taken from the Regimental Fire & Fury Scenarios Volume 1 book. This is a relatively minor early war engagement involving green troops.

Translating the RF&F orders of battle to Guns at Gettysburg rules is relatively simple. Each RF&F stand = 1 stand of 6 x 6mm figures for infantry. 1 artillery cannon =1 for GaG. Cavalry is slightly different in that mine are based 2 to a stand. Therefore 1 RF&F stand = 2 x GaG stands. 

Background to the battle:

In response to the growing Federal threat to the east of Richmond, Col. John Magruder was sent to Yorktown to organise southern defences. Cavalry commanded by Lt Hood and Col Hill's 1st North Carolina volunteers reinforced Magruder. They fortified a strong position at Big Bethel Church. From these positions the Rebels could observe and harass the growing Union forces.

Concerned by the threat to new Union camps, Maj Gen Butler decided to destroy the rebel positions. He sent converging columns on a night march for a dawn attack against the southern outposts. As they closed on the rebels, green Union troops fired into a friendly regiment. Alerted by the fire. the Rebels abandoned Little Bethel and fell back on their fortified positions at Big Bethel.

An overview of the battlefield:

The Union troops approach from the right (south). 

Confederate entry and exit point is 'A' with 'B' for the Union.

The area inside the breastworks south of points X - Y is a key position.

Continued -

ACW 6mm: The Battle of Kernstown

This was a battle I fought solo a couple of years ago and is just about the last one to add that is relevant to current projects that was played prior to the creation of the blog. It will not be as detailed as my current games as I am having to recall what happened based on brief notes and photos.

This scenario is taken from the 'Guns at Gettysburg Scenarios 4. Stonewall. The Battles of General T.J. Jackson, CSA'. Scenario 2:

BACKGROUND

In the spring of 1862, General Banks commanding the Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley wished to remove the threat of Confederate troops in the lower valley before General McClellan began the Union advance on Richmond. To this end he sent General Shields against Jackson's Confederates near Winchester.

After holding his first (and avowed last) council of war, Jackson withdrew his forces from Winchester. Shields followed and reported that the Rebels had retreated to Strasburg. Banks then began to divert his command to confront Johnston.

Ashby, who commanded Jackson's cavalry, then advanced towards Winchester and encountered the Federal outposts near Kernstown where General Shields was wounded and retired to his HQ at Winchester. Ashby reported that no more than 4 regiments defended Winchester, and Jackson moved to attack. Shields was convinced that the Confederates were no nearer than Strasburg and suggested that Kimball, who now commanded Shields' division move to attack. Kimball was not convinced. Ashby along with 4 companies of infantry skirmishers and Chew's horse artillery had put up a bold front during the morning. He deployed his own brigade with 3 batteries on Pritchard's Hill and then sent for reinforcements as Jackson's main force came up. 

Continued -

ACW 6mm: Battle of Cedar Mountain

Having extensively covered my Napoleonic projects I now turn to ACW. I intend to bring the reader up to date with my ongoing project. i.e. to play through the scenarios within the F&F, RF&F and Guns at Gettysburg scenario books. There are two AAR's to post in addition to 'First Bull Run' which you will find elsewhere on the blog with the ACW label. 

The rules used are Guns at Gettysburg by Dave Brown. I have introduced similar modifications to those used in General de Brigade. The most significant being Command and Control and the omission of skirmishers which are too fiddly for 6mm. 

This scenario is drawn from the Fire & Fury Great Eastern Battles scenario book. Transferring to Guns at Gettysburg orders of battle was relatively straightforward. 1 base in F&F = 1 base in GaG for infantry and artillery, and 2 bases for cavalry. As this is a brigade level scenario I introduced modifications to the rules mainly around attack formations to allow for the fact that each unit was now a brigade rather than a battalion.  

All basing for my 6mm ACW is similar to my Napoleonics. The only difference being cavalry:

Infantry 6 to a base 15mm x 15mm.

Artillery 1 cannon and 4 crew to a base 15mm frontage x 20mm

Cavalry 2 to a base 15mm x 15mm.

On to the battle:

ACW 6mm: First Bull Run

FIRST BULL RUN

6mm ACW

Taken from 'Guns at Gettysburg Scenarios 4'  

'The Battles of General T.J. Jackson CSA'

It is my intention to work through the Fire & Fury Scenario books including the Regimental versions, and also the scenario books written for the Guns at Gettysburg Rules by Dave Brown. As with the Napoleonics these will be 6mm figures from the Baccus Miniatures range.

The Napoleonic Command and Control system has been use but slightly reworked for ACW. Similarly, adjustments were made to reflect the fact that each unit is a brigade rather than a single battalion for the brigade level F&F scenarios.