American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

For those of you who live near Civil War Battlefields -

Have you ever found your "house" on one of the maps? I live in York, PA, right now but the large Gettysburg map does not expand far enough to encompass York.

On the HPS Historical Murfreesboro map I used to live at hex (111, 69). Its always fun to play on that map and think about, literally, defending my old house.

I know we have a number of members from Chattanooga and Northern Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania so maybe they are able to do the same thing.

Not in the ACW, obviously. But I had an odd fealing when first seeing the Ulm-Augsburg map in HPS Austerlitz. It covers all the ground I grew up upon, including the small town where my grandmothers used to live.

_________________
Gen. Walter, USA
The Blue Blitz

3/2/VIII Army of the Shenandoah
"... and keep moving on."

Same here, with games like Market Garden and Ypres, I am able to fight in my own birthplace

_________________
Captain Karel Van Canegem
5th Artillery Battalion
3rd Division
I Corps - AotM
"Cold Steel Flying Battery"

Sorry to further stray from the topic of ACW battlefields, but I live in 'ye olde' York in England, the site of a great siege in the English Civil War. A battery of the besieging Parliamentarian Earl of Manchester's army was positioned near where I live. Now I'm just waiting for this to appear in a game. It could be a long wait

_________________

General Antony Barlow
2/1/XX, Army of the Cumberland

Always nice to see that the club is still quite international. Not to the same extent as the NWC, but still.

_________________
Gen. Walter, USA
The Blue Blitz

3/2/VIII Army of the Shenandoah
"... and keep moving on."

I live too far north to be near any ACW battlefields, but am in close proximity to many American Revolutionary battlefields, like Bunker Hill, Concord and Lexington, etc.

_________________
General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

I never thought about this from a European perspective. I have never been to Europe so I dont know much about battlefields in relation to towns and cities in Europe. Are there "battlefields" in Europe that are preserved like there are here in America? Are places like Waterloo, Ardennes, Thermopylae, Anzio, Verdun, Somme, Normandy, ect. dotted with monuments? And what of the old WW1 trenches? Are any still intact? I know in the states we have only small bits and pieces of trenches remaining that once surrounded Petersburg and Richmond - not to mention Vicksburg.

Its always alot of fun to hear how things are done on the other side of the world! That is one of the best parts of this Club. Now if we only had the ability to instanteously transport to one area so we could all get that long-awaited beer, tell some stories, and tour battlefields from one side of the globe to the other.

I'll just speak here about the Belgian battlefields. Many times I have visited Bastogne, Waterloo, Ypres, ... but (this might sound strange) they are really dead places. Take Hill 60 for example at Ypres. You can access it, but there isn't a lot of information though it was an important place for the defense of the Ypres salient. If you would have this battlefield in the States, there would be a guide with some interesting stories, a lot of multimedia and maybe even the chance to get an impression of a gas attack.
I have never visited America, but I do follow your preservation of battlegrounds. You guys are doing a better job, have more interest and respect for your forefathers, and private organisations have money and influence to preserve some land.
Again, this also shows in our military. We parade them with plastic guns

_________________
Captain Karel Van Canegem
5th Artillery Battalion
3rd Division
I Corps - AotM
"Cold Steel Flying Battery"

Blake,
Having gone to school in Gettysburg, I'm no stranger to this phenomenon. My fraternity house (Sigma Nu, founded at VMI by Confederate veterans) is located on West Broadway and Washington Street, right at the edge of the field. Just behind the house are college owned playing fields, but just beyond that are the monuments marking the XI Corps lines on the morning of Day 1.
My freshman dorm was located on Lincoln Ave and Carlisle Street, right on the line of march that Early made as he broke Barlow's flank and moved into town. There is a monument for the 1st Ohio Light artillery right outside, where they stood and tried to hold off the inevitable advance.
My junior year I lived in what's known as Constitution House, just across from the Rail Road station on Washington Street, and then in the "Corner Cottage", right across from the 1st Ohio monument, which is an older house (but not so old as to exist at the time of the battle), however walking past Steven's Hall (which was part of Thaddeus Steven's institute) and Pennsylvania Hall (which served as a hospital for both sides during the battle) you can see how much the campus has changed since 1863. (Cool story; the area known as Stine Lake (really just an open field now) used to flood during even slight rainstorms (hence the name), and during the battle was a dumping ground for ampuatated body parts removed from the nearby field hospital in Penn Hall. When construction on the Musselman library began in the 1980's, they unearthed scores of skeletal remains. The workers (mostly Mexican migrant workers) were horrified and demanded a priest be brought in to bless the site before work would continue. To this day, the Library remains the only place on campus that is considered "holy ground", even the College Chapel is non-denominational)

<salute>

_________________
Brig. Gen. Nick DeStefano
5th Artillery Battalion, 2nd Division, II "Wolf-Pack" Corps, AotM
[img]http://www.acwgc.org/IVCorps/Image/IVCorps250.png[/img]

Plastic guns, Karel? I wonder if you are joking or not. For some reason I actually think that is true. It wouldnt shock me.

Our battlefields were all built during the Victorian Age and when the nation was beginning to heal the wounds of the war. The country came together in a new wave of patriotism in the 1890s as we connected east and west and the nation began to "grow-up." There was a push by the aging veterans to get the battlefields preserved as a way to honor the history that made our nation what it is today. As America entered the Spanish-American War there were still men like Confederate General Joe Wheeler who led troops in the battle of San Juan Hill. It is fascinating to think of Teddy Roosevelt and Joseph Wheeler on the same battlefield! As America passed into the 20th Century the battlefields were already dotted by monuments and there were frequent ceremonies honoring the past deeds of the soldiers on both sides. By 1900 - 1910 this growth ended due to various reasons (mainly because the old soldiers were dying out and they began to be replaced by a younger generation in Congress and in State governments). Today there are very few monuments that have been built since 1900 on the battlefields. The occasional one is still placed by a state but not often. Texas did place them on most of the battlefields during the centennial celebration of the War in 1961 - 1965. In 1973 Kansas placed a God-awful piece of abstract art on the Vicksburg battlefield that I almost wish a tree would fall on In 2004 Tennessee finally placed a Confederate monument on Shiloh Battlefield that was very well-done and sought to harken back to the Victorian imagery of the 1880s-1890s.

If you have any pics of the battlefield in Belgium I would love to see them if you ever have a chance to send them over to me!

Nick, you lucky dog going to college there! I am still jealous. If I could live my life over again....

Well no Civil War battlefields in the Texas Panhandle but I'm pretty close to the site where Ranald McKenzie finally ended the Commanche's rule of the Llano Estacado.

_________________
General Mark Nelms

3/2/XX/AoC "Blackhawk Brigade"

Union Military Academy Instructor

Waterloo is dotted with monuments, yes. There is even the huge Lion Mound erected to honor the Anglo-Allied victory, building which actually took away most of the ridge behind which Wellington had hidden a part of his force. So commemoration of the battle is more dominant than preservation of the field.

The major WW1 battlefields in the West are mostly represented my military cemeteries--there are huge Commonwealth graveyards with shining white stones, as at Passchendaele, and the more subdued German cemeteries as at Langemark (easy to see who won and who lost). There are also monuments, but usually a few really big ones.

There aren't many WW1 trenches left, which is not surprising, seeing how there was a dominant desire to heal the wounds of the war and to bring the fields back under the plow. Some have been excavated and reconstructed, however.

The military history association of which I'm a member did an excursion to Waterloo and Ypres a few years ago. There are some pictures of what I mentioned above, here --

http://akmilitaergeschichte.de/Exkursio ... n_2006.htm

-- though of course the text is in German. (Click on the images for larger versions.)

The other side of the memory of WW1 is of course memorials for the dead in practically every German and French village, usually facing the church or the city hall. Some were re-utilized to add the dead of WW2. Needless to say, other than that WW2 is not the kind of conflict to lend itself easily to representation through the usual kind of war memorials. As regards battlefields, maybe they were simply too big and too settled, and the war was too fast-moving. The Ardennes Offensive, that's half of Belgium and all of Luxemburg, fought over for just a couple of weeks. On the other hand, Normandy is full of war museums which with their abundant display of actual service items (uniforms and gear) seems to be made primarily to appeal to the war veteran rather than inform later generations.

_________________
Gen. Walter, USA
The Blue Blitz

3/2/VIII Army of the Shenandoah
"... and keep moving on."

In his youth, Prax Swan spent a good bit of time roaming the Texas hill country in the vicinity of Camp Ben McCulloch, an area still known for excellent brisket and cold beer.

CAMP BEN MCCULLOCH. Camp Ben McCulloch, near Driftwood in Hays County, was organized in the summer of 1896 as a reunion camp for Confederate veterans and named for Benjamin McCulloch. The first commander was Capt. M. L. Reed of Henly. Annual three-day reunions were held at the camp, often with 5,000 to 6,000 persons attending. In 1930 Ben McCulloch was said to be the largest Confederate camp in existence. The last reunion, the Golden Jubilee, was held on August 9, 1946, and included a memorial service for the camp's last two members, who had died the previous year. Subsequently, the camp became the location of the annual meetings of the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, with various activities and services spanning a week in early June. The campsite, on a branch of Onion Creek, also remains a popular picnic area for residents of northern Hays County.

T. F. Harwell, Eighty Years Under the Stars and Bars (Kyle, Texas, 1947).

_________________


General Prax Swan
1/3/III ANV

As a native of Chattanooga I have grown up with the history of the Civil War all around me. My Davis family line has been in Chattanooga since it was a trading post called Ross's Landing in the 1830's.

My great-great-grandfather William Davis joined McClellan's Tennessee Cavalry (CSA) in Chattanooga in the summer of 1861. Was captured while serving under Forrest in December 1863, and then turned around and enlisted in the 6th Mounted Infantry Regt (Union), in Sep 1864, again, in Chattanooga.

I currently live right off the northern edge of the Missionary Ridge map where you see Friar's Island in the Tennessee River. Friar's Island, by the way, can no longer be seen. Chickamauga Dam was built just west of Friar's Island at about hex (38,17), which created Chickamauga Lake on the Friar Island side of the dam. I live along North Chickamauga Creek just above the edge of the map.

On the Chickamauga map I also have connections. My maternal grandmother lived approximately at hex (121,156) and as a child in the 60's I spent a lot of time there roaming around the battlefield area. As a young man, I went to church for years at hex (106,216) and got married there. I spent my wedding night at the Gordon-Lee Mansion in Chickamauga, labeled on the map as Crawfish Springs, (90,231).

I have always enjoyed my close ties with our area history and feel awed because of it.

_________________
Lt. Mark Davis
Army of the Potomac

Well I know of one battlefield in Finland they have managed to preserve pretty good. It's the battle at Oravais in the Finnish War 1808-1809.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Oravais

Where Sweden lost Finland to Russia and this battle was very important it was Swedens last chance to change the course of the war.

Well the field looks like this today.

Pretty well preserved and it has some memorial stones placed all over the field. They also have a pretty active visitors center that has guided tour of the battlefield as well as battle reenactments.

Here is the main memorial stone for the swedish forces:


In english:
Consecrated
------------------------------
To the memory of warriors fallen in Oravais field,
September 14, 1808.
------------------------------
Fallen for duty and fatherland,
The warriors rest from bloody conflict,
But feats of memory is alive,
Loved, blessed until the last time

(Used google translate for most of the text got it pretty good even though the swedish on that sign is a bit old :p)

You can also find more pictures from the battlefield on this site.
http://www.oravais.fi/vomturism/ohif/bi ... index.html