Polk's Brigade of Cleburne's Division

While I was painting Confederate cavalry for our just completed Chickamauga game, I also finished painting and basing another brigade for Hardee's Corps of the Army of Tennessee.

Polk's brigade of Cleburne's Division

This is the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Lucius Polk (no relation to the Bishop) and consisted of the 1st Arkansas, 3rd/5th (consolidated) Confederate, and 2nd, 35th, and 48th Tennessee Infantry Regiments.  The figures are 15mm Old Glory miniatures and are dressed in my rendition of a "drab" colored uniform which was common in the Confederate west.  They are based for the venerable "On to Richmond" rules.

Now I just have to paint Wood's Brigade and I'll be completed with Cleburne's Division.  That will put my half-way through painting my Confederate infantry forces, leaving just the three brigades of Breckinridge's Division and the two brigades of Bowen's Division (borrowed from Pemberton's command in Mississippi).

Deshler's "Texas" Brigade

Finally, after many fits and starts, I've completed another Confederate brigade for my 15mm ACW forces which are based on portions of the Union Army of the Cumberland and Confederate Army of Tennessee during the spring and summer of 1863.

This one is the "third" brigade of  Pat Cleburne's division of Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee.  Commanded by Brigadier General James Deshler, it consisted of the following regiments:  19th/24th Arkansas, 6th/10th Texas Infantry/15th Texas cavalry (dismounted), and 17th/18th/24th/25th Texas cavalry (dismounted).  After Deshler was killed at Chickamauga, the brigade command was assumed by Brigadier General James A. Smith and later by Colonel, then Brigadier General, Hiram Granbury.

Deshler's Brigade in a reinforced line formation

 My 15mm ACW forces are organized for the "On to Richmond" rules where the basic maneuver unit is the brigade.  Each stand depicts about 300 infantry.  With Deshler's Brigade being about 1800 strong, there are six stands in it.  The reinforced line is one of the formations allowed in the OTR rules.

Here's another view showing the "Cleburne" style flag carried by the regiments of the brigade.  Even though there are three combined regiments in this brigade, I only use one flag.  The miniatures, with two exceptions, are 15mm Old Glory figures.  The two exceptions are the mounted and foot officers.

Here's a close-up of one of the stands.  I've depicted the brigade in newly issued uniforms from the Columbus, Georgia, depot.  It is a light gray/brown with infantry blue cuffs.  I used Folk Art Barn Wood as the base uniform color with Americana Uniform Blue on the cuffs.  For more information on this uniform, as well as pictures of surviving examples, see Geoffrey Walden's excellent on-line article "Confederate 'Columbus Depot' Jackets."  This uniform will also equip another of my soon to be painted Confederate brigades, Helms' "Orphan" Brigade of Breckinridge's Division.

15mm Confederates and 25mm Medievals

My August additions have been a little varied -- 15mm Confederate infantry and 25mm Medieval cavalry!

First the Confederates.  I purchased a nice little collection of painted 15mm Confederate infantry a short while ago and organized some of them into another brigade for my somewhat made-up Tullahoma Campaign forces.  To these already painted figures I added a mounted officer - Brigadier General Stephen Dill Lee.  Lee, as many of you may know, started out as an artillery officer, eventually commanding some of the artillery at Vicksburg.  But during the beginnings of the campaign that would eventually see it fall, he was given command of an Alabama brigade. 

As a graduate of Mississippi State University, I just had to include S.D. Lee in my Confederate forces as he was a long-time President of the university (or Mississippi Agricultural & Mechanical College as it was know then).  Plus he was a long-time president of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History from which I recently retired after 22 years of service.

I've replicated it for "On to Richmond" rules with a strength of approximately 1200 men.  All I had to do was repaint several of the figures trousers and some of the blanket rolls.

Lee's Alabama Brigade - 20th, 23rd, 30th, 31st, and 46th Alabama Regiments

Although in reality this brigade was besieged in Vicksburg and captured when the city surrendered, in my made-up Tullahoma campaign, it was sent from Mississippi to reinforce the Army of Tennessee.  As an independent brigade, Lee's can be attached to any of the Confederate divisions.

As part of "On to Richmond" brigades suffer casualties two ways - outright kills and disruptions.  Of course outright kills result in the removal of stands, but disruptions incur various combat and fire penalties.  The rules recommend some type of marker to indicate the up to three disruptions a brigade can suffer.  I decided to use a hexagon base with a casualty figure and one, tow, and three dots on the sides to indicate the degree of disruption.  This picture shows Lee's Brigade with two disruptions.

Lee's Brigade with a disruption marker showing two disruptions.

And finally, I came across some vintage Ral Partha "true" 25mm mounted sergeants that I bought a couple of years ago.  As they were already painted to a nice standard, all I had to do was touch them up and glue them to their 40mm x 20mm metal bases.  This unit of 6 mounted sergeants can now be used for three different rule sets - the venerable "Rules by Ral," the derivative and expanded "Lion Rampant," and the relatively new "To the Strongest!"  Can't get much better usage than that, can you?

I haven't come up with a name for these rascals yet, but they do look very martial.

Hebert's Brigade and Forney's Divisional Artillery

Well it has been more than a month since my last post.  "Equipping" Hebert's Brigade was much slower than I thought it would be, but it is finally done.

Hebert's Brigade of Forney's Division has a special significance to me as it contained the regiment in which my great-grandfather, Wesley Washington Pitts, served.  The 36th Mississippi Regiment was organized shortly before Shiloh but didn't join Beauregard's army until after the battle.  They participated in the battles of Iuka and Corinth in the fall of 1862, then were assigned to the garrison at Vicksburg where they stayed until the surrender on July 4, 1863.  Reconstituted in west Alabama after being exchanged, the regiment joined the Army of the Tennessee as part of Bishop Polk's Army of Mississippi reinforcements, fighting from New Hope Church (May 1864) through the disasters at Franklin and Nashville.  It then was assigned to the garrison at Mobile where it ended the war.

In my "imagination" Civil War world, Forney's Division (Hebert's and Moore's Brigades, plus artillery) was transferred from the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana (Pemberton's command) as reinforcements for the Army of Tennessee, joining them just in time for the Tullahoma campaign.

Hebert's Brigade consisted of the 3rd and 21st Louisiana Infantry Regiments; the 36th, 37th, 38th, and 43rd Mississippi Regiments; and the 7th Mississippi Battalion.  Represented here for the "On to Richmond" rules it has approximately 1500 men.

Hebert's Brigade in single line of battle.  Since the brigade was originally under Van Dorn's command, I gave it a "Van Dorn" style battle flag.

And the brigade in that "new fangled" reinforced battle line with about 40% of the regiments in the second line.

Forney's divisional artillery consisted of the following batteries: A Company/1st Mississippi Light Artillery, C Company/2nd Alabama Artillery, and Sengstak's Alabama Company.  Each battery only had 4 guns so with the "On to Richmond" organization, those 12 tubes are represented by one gun model and 4 gunners.  As best as I can tell, the majority of the guns in these three batteries were smoothbores.  The gun model is painted as a 12-lb Napoleon gun-howitzer.

Forney's Division artillery "battalion"

And here is a shot of Hebert's Brigade and the divisional artillery battalion deployed to engage the Yankees.

Still to be painted is the divisional command group for Forney's Division, Major General John Forney.  Hopefully it will be done much quicker than Hebert's Brigade.

All of the figures and the gun are from Old Glory 15s.  http://oldglory15s.com/

First Confederate Brigade

I've finally completed painting my first Confederate brigade for the "On to Richmond!" (OtR) rules I'm planning on using for my 15mm American Civil War games.  It joins the Union brigade from Larry Reeves (see last post).  It only took me about three months to paint it as I had a lag in my painting mojo.

It represents the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Jonathan C. Moore of Major General John Forney's Division of the Confederate Army of Mississippi.  Although this brigade was part of the Vicksburg garrison and surrendered there on July 4, 1863, in my imagi-ACW gaming Forney's and Bowen's divisions were sent to Tennessee in the early Spring of 1863 to reinforce the Army of Tennessee.  Moore's Brigade consisted of the 37th, 40th, and 44th Alabama; the 35th and 40th Mississippi; and the 2nd Texas Infantry Regiments.  These regiments are depicted in a mix of "drab" uniforms that were common in the Western theater.  Made from undyed wool they were various shades of drab brown and gray.  A few of the figures are in the more common "Confederate Gray" uniforms and a couple have even "liberated" some Yankee pants.  The flag they fly is the Van Dorn battle flag which was originally flown by units under the command of Major General Earl Van Dorn in Mississippi and East Louisiana beginning in February of 1862.

The figures are from Old Glory 15s and are mounted on 2" x 1" Litko bases.  The flag is from an illustration of a Van Dorn battle flag that I found on the internet.

The "full frontal" view of the brigade

A high oblique view showing one of the OtR infantry formations, the reinforced line.

My next unit to paint is the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Louis Hebert which includes the 36th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, the unit in which my great-grandfather and some of his brothers and brothers-in-law served.  Hopefully this one won't take three months to paint!