American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

For those of you involved in the MP game I was running and which wrapped up last month I have finally found the time to put together the third day recap and the player roster page and have posted them on the game site at

http://home.comcast.net/~krmiller8/mp2/

For the new members this is the second such game I've moderated, you'll find the site for the first game at

http://home.comcast.net/~krmiller8/srmp/

These were interesting experiments at MP games, still haven't quite achieved what I want but the players appeared to have found it interesting. Not sure if I'll start another one in 2008 but if I do I will post something here.

Gen. Ken Miller



Army of the Shenandoah

<font color="beige"><b>Looking back through my old e-mail I see the first order sent by Gen. Rodes (me) was dated June 28th at 2PM (June 3rd 2005) and the last order sent was June 30th at 6:40PM (Sept 7th 2007)

During this time Saturdays were always awaited with anticipation knowing the next turn would arrive. It's hard to believe that two years has gone by, time does indeed fly when you're having fun.

This was the second "Miller" game I've been involved in and even though I enjoyed the first one the most, this one was still great fun and through a field promotion (when Gen Ewell took ill), I had the opportunity to command at the corps level.



Ken, Thank you once again for putting on these games, I don't know how you manage to do all the work that's involved in keeping all the orders straight, doing all the book keeping, sending out orders, doing the turns, etc, etc....etc......</b></font id="beige">

<font size="5"><b><font color="orange">[^]My hat is off to you Suh! <Salute> </font id="orange"></b></font id="size5">

<font color="beige"><b>And also to all the other participants both north and south [8D]<Salute>[8D]</b></font id="beige">

<center><font color="beige"><b>Maj.Gen. R.A.Weir
<font color="blue"><font size="4">AoA Chief of Staff</font id="size4"></font id="blue"></b></font id="beige">
<font color="yellow">THE CALVERT LINE</font id="yellow">

<font color="beige"><b>4th ENGINEERS
2nd II
<font size="5">AoA</font id="size5"></b></font id="beige"> </center>

Very interesting reading, especily about Meade! (Me)

I, also, eagerly awaited the files from you on Saturdays and tried to make them a priority, on Saturday nights.

I hate to agree with a REB, but it was great fun and thanks for putting this all together.





<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet Member
ACWGC Records Site Administrator
</b></font id="gold">

Ken
Fascinating exercise!! Well done. It must have been a tremendous amount of work for you. The after action report and pictures are outstanding. Was it worth all the effort you put into it? I sure hope so as this looks like everyone should have had a great time( I was a tiny part of it and enjoyed it)[:D][8D]

Colonel Tony Best
Army of Georgia

It is an outstanding way to play. There is no better way to experience the limitations of 19th century command & control than by trying (often in vain) to control a huge army through written messages only. You soon find out which subordinates you can trust implicitly ... and which ones need closer supervision. I reckon it works the other way round as well ... being urged by a superior to execute orders that don't seem to make sense in the light of your better understanding of the situation on the spot, the capabilities of your own command &c.

I played in four of these games now, one in the NWC and three in the ACWGC. I was a subordinate only once, commanding Austrian VIII Corps in the original NWC game, but there my army commander exercised only very loose control over the corps, sort of R. E. Lee style. In all three ACW games I was the army commander. Should there be another iteration, I am looking forward to playing in a subordinate position for a change.



Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
3/2/VIII AoS

Great game Ken. Thanks for the experience.

This is my third game played this way (fourth if we count the short experimental one on the Shiloh field with two moderators) and I think it's one of the best ways to play albiet frustrating.

I too looked forward to Saturday evenings when the turn usually came back from Ken.

I chose the CSA side for this one, first for something different and that side had more a "command tree" involving real players then the USA side.

I'll go into a summary from my "Longstreet" then "Stuart"'s perspective, and maybe other participants will post with their experiences:

Day 1: We on the CSA side started great until it came time for the prebattle discussion....wink.

There was indecisivness all around, Longstreet included. We finally just moved forward a little and dug in although it looked like Hill might do some damage up at Hagerstown. Unfortunatly the Feds pulled everyone back just in a nick of time. The one significant thing that did happen on day 1 was the Stuart's cavalry, against orders, elected to take on 1 or maybe even 2 infantry corps and lost 2000 troopers in the process. The net effect of this was to basically drop the CSA one V level not to mention the CSA really had no formibible cavalry corps left. "Stuart" soon thereafter left the game and then left the club.

Day 2: We received orders overnight to withdraw but the line drawn for us really made no sense to anyone. It was too long, we had huge gaps in it and getting clear direction and response to messages was proving trying at best. As communication appeared to be crippling the CSA, I told Ken I'd be glad to take over if Hood took over the I Corps as Hood seemed on the same page as myself. Ken had a discussion with the AC and I guess the AC agreed because the next thing I knew I was the AC.

Ken gave us a free one week conference to try to get things in order. The game was now within just a few points of a loss and I first wanted to get us back from the brink. First, we needed to get the army together. Hill was pretty much by himself up north with Heth moving further north still and we had to get everyone moving south. We decided to get the I Corps going in an all out attack. I didn't think we'd really be pushing anyone into the creek from my experiences at Murfreesboro (I was the USA Johnson there) but at least we were showing some muscle for the first time.

Longstreet moved north, meeting with all the division and Corps CO's along the way. Being a "hit hard and then sit back and watch good things happen" kind of guy I decided to order Ewell to get Johnson attacking south to aid Hood. Ordered Rodes to attack east and Early to attack south aiding Rodes in the hope of trapping the enemy V corps.

A bigger concern was gettng the army together. At 11 AM there was about a 3 mile gap to the elements of Hills Corps. If the XI corps had come over at Claggetts and Rowlands in even minimal force to block the Pike at this time, the battle would have been essentially over. A free march south would have turned into a fight south. Instead I was amazed Heth was able to march south basically in parade formation in full view of the enemy. I commented to Ken all we were lacking was band units.

As it was we were able to use the Pike to get Heth south and get Hill driving south overland with Anderson and Pender. My plan was to get get Heth south of the XI corps to prevent them from fleeing south while using Anderson and Pender as the hammer against Heths anvil. I thought with crack units against the XI Corps we stood an excellent chance of success. For whatever reasons, communication was poor and this didn't happen but we did manage to wreck the XI Corps. Heth was also having unexpected problems getting flanked himself and the V Corps surround was taking longer then anyone had hoped.

Around mid day I reluctantly had to cut back the AI artillery because we were running out of ammo.

As the sun was setting, I evaluated the day and for a variety of reasons, felt the army CO position should be taken over by someone else. The army was now united and we were not on the brink of a loss anymore.

So I took over the remnants of Stuarts cav. During the night we had a discussion on attacking vs. withdrawal. I championed the withdrawal route since we were still a looooong ways away from hitting minor V territory. Given my experiences in failing to close the ring around the V Corps or the XI Corps I figured the chances of causing the great damage we needed to do to get to victory was minimal if non existant.

Day 3 Stuart basically functioned as a fire brigade, ending the battle south of the river.

Anyway, sorry for the long read, but I enjoyed the game tremendously. I'm actually happy with the disappointments as I think they reflected rather accuratly the trials of our real life counterparts.

I hope others post with their experiences.

BTW, it was my AC experience that led me to figure out that it was tremendously helpful to load in the past and current game turn (or even many previous turns) and watch the thing like a movie. I told Ken at the time passing it along should have been at least worth 200 VP's......wink.


Again, great job Ken. Wow!! Three years sure go by fast!!

Gen. Doug Burke


Other hobby: Running 30-40 miles per week. Several races a year from 5K to marathon. Boston marathon 2007.

I also second the vote. It was a great game and I highly recommend anyone who hasn't tried this type game to do so. Just be sure you have the long term commitment to complete it.

I thought I would also give some commentary since as Gen. Hood I got to wear more hats than anyone else.[:D]

The first day was pretty slow for Gen. Hood's division. I held the left of Longstreet's line near the Antietam Creek. I was a bit more active than the rest of the line since the middle crossing of the Antietam were in my front so I advanced two brigades to make sure the Union didn't slip across.

During the night the 1st Corps fell back to a shorter line position based on Downey Branch. This was to have a significant affect on day 2.

On the morning of Day 2 there was a command change and for a while continuation of digging in along Downey Branch and wondering if the 2nd Corps would link up with the 1st Corps left before the Union discovered the gap. Gen. Hood, myself, has taken command of the 1st Corps. It is during this time I noticed the Union advance was taking the form of a East-West line sweeping northward with only some cavalry moving west toward my position. The 1st Corps being down in the valley of Downey Branch was pretty much invisible. I brought up the possibility that the 1st Corps could catch the Union in the flank. In conference this idea was expanded to include a general shift of the whole army south would to make a sweep of everything west of the Antietam. It was a "hail Mary" plan but we were desparate.

Late in the morning I shifted my Corps as far east as I could while staying under cover of the valley and waited for the Union left to come to me. When they did I hit them with three of my divisions, Ransom arrived late and was still on the road. I had hoped to be hitting the Union VIII Corps which would have scattered. Unfortunately for the plan I hit II Corps. They fell back before the onslaught but then two more Corps, VIII on their left and XII on their right, came in to support. My Corps was joined by Johnson's division on my left and later by Ransom's on the right so we continued to pushed them back all afternoon but didn't have the numbers to crush them. The arrival of the VI Corps at dusk ended any chance of surrounding and destroying the Union left against the Antietam.

We had driven them six miles. The 1st Corps left reoccupied some of our 1st Day trenches around Tilhmanton but the VI Corps gave them a solid line from the bend in the Potomac over to Antietam Creek. We had helped even up the victory level to a solid draw but could do no more. I rested the Corps.

Day 3 openned with no good choices for the Rebel army and a command change for me. I took over Army command turning the 1st Corps over to McLaws. The whole Union army was now on the field and we were badly out numbered.

At a command conference we decided the only course open was a fighting withdrawal back to a short line between the two bends in the Potomac that covered the major fords. We had some major problems to over come in the process. One being we were in the positions where our 2nd day attacks left us, not a defensive line. Our left covering Hagerstown was totally in the air and we new two fresh Union Corps plus almost all the Union cavarly had massed there. The Union actually were closer to Williamsport and fords that could turn us than our infantry was.

So I ordered Stuart to keep the 30,000 yankees on our left flank from getting to Williamsport before us. The 2nd Corps, now commanded by Rodes, in our center to march toward Williamsport and become our left. Johnson's division was to cross to the west side of the Potomac at Williamsport and hold the fords there. The 1st Corps was to cover the our right and support 3rd Corps. And, 3rd Corps, commanded still by Gen. Hill, was to attack.

Actually this was an attack of opportunity. We new that the Union had not completely withdrawn elements of two Corps in their center back across Antietam Creek. We expected them to do it first thing in the morning but we thought we might have an opportunity to catch them and isolate them on our side of the creek. We had two of Hill's divisions north of them almost in contact, one division of the 2nd Corps still holding positions along the pike just west of them and a division of the 1st Corps at Tilghmanton who could cut them off from the Antietam from the south. It was another "hail Mary" attack but if the Union was slow to realize their danger we could strike at dawn. If we cut them off from the crossing and isolated them we could still pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

Dawn found yankees still on our side of the creek and Hill launched his attack. Unfortunately his Corps hadn't recovered sufficiently during the night to mount a strong enough drive to cut the Union off. Before he reached the bridges the Union had pulled everthing of value back across the creek. There was nothing left to do but order Hill to join the withdrawal west and take position as the center of our new line.

A withdrawal before an enemy that significantly out numbers you is one of the hardest maneuvers to pull off and we had a six to eight mile withdrawal to make. In a normal one on one game this is impossible. The enemy player immediately sees the shifting of force and sends every regiment forward in pursuit. But this is where Ken's command type game shines. It takes time for the Union army command to shift from defending orders to pursuit.

It is also a time when the Army commander sweats blood as he watches divisions marching off in odd directions sometimes toward the enemy when you thought you ordered the Corps commanders to do something entirely different. But 2nd Corps wins the race to Williamsport and forms a line facing northeast and the advancing Union right wing. Stuart can finally fall back through the infantry and safety.

But as one crises passes another develops. The Union failing to beat us to Williamsport shifts their line of advance to the Downsville-Hagerstown road and the 2nd Corps right which is in the air. Orders go to Hill to get his division linked up with 2nd Corps but Hill's divisions are all over the map since they had no roads directly to the center of the new army line. But again we win the race with Hill's lead division linking up with the 2nd Corps just as the advancing Union line closes the only road leading to Williamsport and the 2nd Corps.

And the crises shifts again but now to the center. A huge gap of open land with no roads exists between where Hill has connected with the 2nd Corps and the left of the 1st Corps. The Union is now beginning to press the 1st Corps particularly on its left which holds the Tilghmanton-Downsville road and access to the no-mans land in our center. So I send in Stuart's worn troops to fill the gap and scream at Hill to get his left in there and connect with the 1st Corps. Orders go to McLaw and the 1st Corps to fall back so they can help with the link up but one division, Pickett, must move south and cross the Potomac to hold the fords that direction.

Hill finally links up with the 1st Corps in the late afternoon freeing Stuart to go meet the next threat. Yankees have forced the upper crossing of the Potomac and are trying to break free to get to our rear. Again orders go to Stuart to keep them in check.

The Union is finally advancing across our front but its to late. Our line is solid and both flanks are now anchored on the Potomac. We slowly contract the line further easily checking their attacks and denying their artillery close fire.

With night the battle ends. By morning the Union will have their massive artillery advantage in place so there is no choice but to withdraw across the Potomac.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

It'd be great if we got the USA perspective on the battle, what went right and what went wrong for their side. Between the two posts by the CSA's AC's the USA players now have been provided fairly accurate picture of what the CSA went through. C'mon guys in blue, don't be timid, give us a clue to what happened over there the last three years. We have had to have caused SOME minimal cause for concern over 36 months.

Gen. Doug Burke

Other hobby: Running 30-40 miles per week. Several races a year from 5K to marathon. Boston marathon 2007.

Gentlemen,
I concur with all which has been stated in this thread. It is about as close as one can get to Civil War command without suffering weather, bad food and, conversely, well-fed lice.
The tales that have been woven are that of Army commanders describing the battle as it unfolded. They had the big picture, however. What about the story of commanders who fought for nearly the entire battle with their only contact to the main body being through General Buford's cavalry and whatever order was received from Hooker? This, then, is the narrative of the Union Right Wing (I and III Corps), John Reynolds overall commander.
Hooker's orders were to advance on Hagerstown. With Merritt's cavalry scouting ahead, I Corps arrived on the Cavetown Road and proceeded to cross the Antietam intent on attacking the Rebs at Hagerstown. Merritt was ordered to picket the crossings south of the I Corps position. Skirmishers detected a heavier enemy presence than expected. Reynolds -- applying the Cockroach Principle (if you see one, there are surely many others) -- ordered a hasty withdrawal (not a retreat mind you) back from whence they came. This is not meant to imply that our Rebel counterparts were insects, just that they seemed to be unduly "thick" that day.
There was a battle to be fought, but Reynolds surmised that it was not happening at his location. His orders were to move on Hagerstown, yet defend the Cavetown Road from Rebel incursion. This worked well in principle if one happened to be marching ON the Cavetown Road TOWARDS Hagerstown, but the latter part of the equation was not operative at the moment. With the intention of crossing the Antietam further north, Robinson's division was ordered to work in concert with the newly arriving III Corps. Wadsworth's division was held in reserve behind Doubleday's entrenching troops.
As III Corps marched towards the Mill crossing, Reynolds sent messages to Hooker requesting permission to advance across the Antietam and assume the high ground beyond. The right wing would drive away the light Rebel covering force, mass and resume the advance at first light. Reynolds felt that this was a workable plan; Hooker did not. Right wing was ordered to remain on the east bank of the Antietam. Night fell on the 1st day.
Reynolds sent a message to Hooker proposing a movement across the Antietam the following day. Sickles Corps was repositioned on the right flank and, in conjunction with Kilpatrick's cavalry, would attack at noon. Robinson and Wadsworth were positioned at the Mill crossing. Doubleday was left on the Cavetown Road with the bulk of the I Corps artillery to discourage the Rebels. Reynolds also made a number of requests for a brigade of Buford's cavalry to the south.
He felt that they could be put to much better use on the open flank than guarding bridges that the Rebs exhibited little interest in crossing. Hooker gave his approval and the attack began on schedule.
Kilpatrick's cavalry was ordered to drive NW towards the Pike and attempt to close on Hagerstown from the north. The opposing Rebel cavalry slowed down their advance, but were dealt with severely. Meanwhile, III Corps marched inexorably towards Hagerstown. As they uncovered the Mill crossing, Robinson and Wadsworth joined the advance. Eventually the bridge in front of Doubleday was likewise uncovered and he crossed with the rest of I Corps. Day 2 closed with the right wing securing Hagerstown and passing beyond. Reynolds sent a message to Hooker indicating that he would move on Williamsport at dawn. III Corps would lead the advance. He again issued a request that part of Buford's command be transferred to his front. This request was rebuffed.
Day 3 unfolded much as Day 2 with III Corps pushing the Reb cavalry and Kilpatrick working on their flank. I Corps covered the gap between III Corps and Buford's command. It was stymied by Rebel forces equal to or greater than their own as the CSA shifted their troops. III Corps reached Williamsport, signaled that crossing the Potomac was not possible because of the enemy presence, and proceeded to advance towards Downsville as previously agreed. The Rebs resisted furiously. Had there been more daylight more results might have been achieved.
Of note is the fact that the Right Wing had their first contact with any other Union unit save Buford's late on Day 3. As has been noted elsewhere in this thread, 2 years on the campaign trail

General John Reynolds
CO I Corps Army of the Potomac

BG Robert Frost
Army of Cumberland