By damn! Those are Regulars!!

With apologies to British Major General Phineas Riall.

I finally completed the last brigade in Brigadier General Absalom Baird's 1st Division of Major General George Thomas' XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland.  This is Brigadier General John King's 3rd Brigade, "The Regulars."  It was the only regular US Army brigade in the Army of the Cumberland, composed of the 1st Battalion, 15th US Infantry, 1st Battalion, 16th US Infantry, 1st and 2nd Battalions, 18th US Infantry, and 1st Battalion, 19th US Infantry.  Although they were part of the regular establishment, not volunteer regiments, they were no better than the volunteers who made up the vast majority of Baird's 1st Division.

King's Regular Brigade in attack column

A "bird's eye" view of the brigade

The figures are all Old Glory 15s with Warflag paper flags, mounted on Litko bases.

They are organized for the "On to Richmond" rules where the basic infantry maneuver unit is the brigade.  Each stand is approximately 300 real men.

They join the other two brigades of Baird's division, completing three of the four divisions in Thomas famed XIV Corps.  I still have to paint Brigadier General John Brannan's 3rd Division of three brigades to complete the corps.

But now I've turned to catching up my Confederate force by beginning on Major General Patrick Cleburne's Division of Lieutenant General William J. Hardee's Corps.

My American Civil War forces are from the 1863 Union Army of the Cumberland and Confederate Army of Tennessee who contested central Tennessee in the Tullahoma Campaign leading to the decisive battle of Chickamauga.

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!

15mm ACW Trial Painting

A short while ago I received my copy of the "On to Richmond" rules which Mark Severin of Scale Creep Miniatures and Flagship Games released.  After reading through it several times, it reinvigorated my long held desire to have ACW troops.  I originally had blue and gray armies using the old Airfix plastic figures but I sold them to a father who wanted to game ACW with his son.  My good wargaming buddy, Jay, already had a huge 25mm regimental-size army.  And my wargaming buddy Larry had a large 15mm regimental-size army.  So my option if I used OTR was to go with its recommended basing and organization using 15mm figures.  I requested some samples from Old Glory 15s to see if my old eyes could still paint 15mm figures.  OG15s sent eight foot figures, one mounted figure, and one gun.  And I found that I could still paint 15mm, or paint them at least well enough to look good in massed units.

I decided I wanted to see how a brigade "command" stand would look with a mounted officer on it as well as a flag bearer and some troops.  Now before you purists start having apoplexy, yes, there are both Union and Confederate figures on both bases, but remember, I was trying out my painting of 15mms not trying to build an army.  Anyway, I think substituting a mounted figure for two of the infantrymen and adding a flag will make the command base stand out.  The flag by the way is a hand-painted Van Dorn style flag used by some of the Confederate units in the Western Theater.  The gun will also look good with a full 4-figure crew, which is how OG15s bags them - 6 guns and 24 gunners.  By the way, the bases are just matte board cut to 2"x2" for the artillery and 2"x1" for the infantry.  The actual bases will probably be Litko pre-cut ones.

So all-in-all I'm satisfied with the figures, both from an ease of painting perspective and from a basing perspective.  Now all I've got to do is come up with the cash to raise the two armies - Thomas' XIV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland and Hardee's Corps (modified) of the Army of Tennessee - for starters.  This way I get 'Pap' Thomas and a brigade of regulars (by God!) on one side and Hardee, Cleburne, and the Orphan Brigade on the other, as well as modifying Hardee's Corps to add Hebert's Brigade which included my great-grandpappy's regiment, the 36th Mississippi Volunteers.

More later as this project (oh no, not another one!) progresses.

 

 



Battle of Jonesborough - Aug 31/Sep 1, 1864/2014

EDIT:  See update in Comments at end of post.

On Monday, Sep 1, 2014 (Labor Day here in the US), several of us gathered to test the newly released reprint (and update) of "On to Richmond" rules for the American Civil War.

These rules were originally published in the now defunct "The Courier" magazine and as a separate rule booklet.  They use the infantry or cavalry brigade as the basic maneuver element supported by artillery battalions of 12 guns.  Each stand is either 300 infantry or 200 cavalry and the brigades are made up of between 3 to 8 stands.

I decided since it was the 150th anniversary of the first day (Aug 31) of the battle of Jonesborough, Georgia, the culmination of the Atlanta campaign, to use it as the test run.  In the battle, two Confederate corps, Hardee's and S.D. Lee's, both under Lt Gen Hardee's command, attacked the Army of the Tennessee under Maj Gen O.O. Howard.  There were two Union corps in the first line and a third in reserve.  Each of the five players commanded a corps of two to three divisions.

It took us a while for me to go through the rules since we had never played them before.  The Confederates set up as they had done historically with Hardee's Corps (under Cleburne) on the left and Lee's Corps on the right.  But when they saw the Union deployment in hasty defensive works they tried to alter their attack by moving the their left.  That took up a goodly period of physical time so we only got to play two or three turns.  By then it was apparent that the Confederates weren't going to push the Union forces back so everyone agreed that it was a draw.  Historically on August 31, the Confederates launched vigorous attacks against the Union forces and suffered severe casualties without dislodging the Union from their positions to any great degree.  Then overnight, Gen Hood got worried about the safety of Atlanta and recalled Lee's Corps, leaving Hardee alone on Sep 1 to face both the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland.  Hardee resisted for a while but was forced to withdraw from Jonesborough, allowing the Union to completely cut the last rail line into Atlanta.  Gen Hood withdrew the Army of Tennessee on Sep 2 and the Union forces then marched into Atlanta.

I only took a few pictures as I was trying to help several of the players understand the play sequence and the maneuvering of their commands.  We used my friend Jay's vintage 25mm ACW forces which are organized with regiments as the basic maneuver unit.  They got "promoted" to brigades for this battle.  The Union had 6 stands per infantry brigade while the understrength Confederate brigades only had 4 stands.  Even so, the forces were about equal since several Union divisions of the Army of the Tennessee were elsewhere that day.

The battlefield of Jonesborough, which is off the table to the east (left).  The Confederates set up along the left side of the table and the Union behind the hasty works at the foot of the ridge and then south (background) along the woods edge.

Looking north behind the Union behind Maj Gen Logan's XV Corps.  There seems to be a visitor to the battlefield.  I wonder if he had anything to do with the Union victory?

Looking south at the Union defenses.  A division of Logan's XV Corps is trying to get out of the woods to advance behind the shifting Confederates and cut the Macon and Western Railroad (off the table to the left).   [Evidently the Union side was sponsored by Coca Cola, as I forgot to ask the guys to remove the cans before I took the picture.]

The Confederate army attempted to shift to its left but continued to have traffic control problems.  Each division moved on its own card so a division in front of another might not have its card drawn before the one behind did, thus jamming up the movement.  In "On to Richmond" each division's brigades move and/or shoot when the division's card is drawn.  That took a while for the players to catch onto as we normally play rules where all movement is done first before any firing.

Brig Gen Kilpatrick's cavalry division supported the Army of the Tennessee.  They were dismounted behind fences along the edge of the woods.  Their devastating fire from Spencer repeating rifles was a surprise to the attacking Confederates.  Kilpatrick's boys could fire three times if they didn't move whereas normal rifled musket armed troops could only fire once.  [Even more obvious, and unintentional, product placement.]

The reserve XVII Corps under Maj Gen Blair begins to arrive and cross the Flint River.  Because the Confederates had moved south away from this northern end of the Union line, XVII Corps didn't get into contact.  But if the game had gone longer, they would have moved off the table to the east, captured Jonesborough, and cut the railroad line.

COMMENTS:   Now, what did we think of the rules.  Personally I liked them, even though I didn't actually move any troops.  The other players indicated that they would like to try them again, but I think there will be some changes made (i.e., "home" rules).  One thing we didn't like was having to roll a die to see if one could enter or pass through disruptive terrain.  Sean (playing Logan) had one of his brigades trapped in the woods even though the other brigade of that division was able to get out and advance.  He also tried to roll to remove some disruptions from one of his brigades that was in the hasty defenses.  Unfortunately he rolled too high and they charged out and across a field to get at the artillery that had been firing on them.  [EDIT:  I missed the statement on the morale table that units in works, etc. can ignore advance results.]  I think we'll make to modifications to those procedures to allow units a little easier time getting out of some woods (but some may be just be too heavy for them to easily traverse) and to make it harder for a unit to have to come out of defensive works.  But we have never seen a rule set that we didn't think would be better with our own improvements!