30 replies to this topic

[healey36]

Thanks for that, Bob; it answered/clarified a number of our questions, one of which being shouldn't the "winner" of a melee suffer some ill effect other than just casualties? Your answer is that it too becomes unformed (which we were omitting).

 

Together with your other points then, our understanding of the lousy effect of recoiling from a failed melee is (1) the unit becomes unformed, (2) the unit must retire, with retirement inducing one level of disorder, and (3) then a morale check which, dependent on the die roll, shifts the unit's morale level down by one or two levels if failed, with the corresponding immediate effects. This is what we were doing with the exception that we assigned a disorder level of five to the retiring loser (that from a misunderstanding of the disorder effect of performing a retirement). We will make note of this in future games.

 

I think that's everything, but we'll reread the rules again and make notes so we don't have issues when we move to the full-blown scenario.

 

Here's a shot from the other day, the moment 56th Virginia attempts to drive the 71st Pennsylvania from their position at The Angle:

 

 

Even making the clarifications noted, the result likely would have been the same. The 56th lost the melee and was thrown back from the wall, failed their morale check and broke, running headlong into the following 38th Virginia which was then itself disordered.

 

Bob, thanks again. Hopefully you remembered to defrost the turkey a few days ahead and all is as it should be for the Benge family Thanksgiving. Hope your holiday is a good one.

 

 

 

P. S. One last thing, we had two of Garnett's regiments (8 Virginia and 18 Virginia) assigned to Kemper's brigade on our OOB/position recap. We have made that correction and include the revised version here. 

Attached Files

•  The Angle OOB vers 3.xlsx   15.58KB   0 downloads

[healey36]

Here's a shot from the session a couple weeks back - the Union line as parts of Garnett's and Armistead's brigades begin their final approach:

 

 

Left to right along the stone fence, that's 59th NY, 69th PA, Cushing's artillery, and the 71st PA. The "Copse of Trees" in the immediate foreground, "The Angle" at the top right. The Emmitsburg Pike is seen in the distance. Although the tabletop is flat, the grade approaching the wall from the west would be a rise of roughly five-percent.

 

Apologies for the blurriness...just couldn't get the Nikon's mojo working that day.

[healey36]

Another shot of veterans at the stone wall just a few yards north of The Angle, this in 1938 (75th anniversary of the battle):

 

 

Theoretically, any Gettysburg veteran at the Blue and Gray Reunion of 1938 would likely be approaching 90-100 years of age, making this an even more remarkable photograph.

 

I received a note from one of our game group members saying our model stone walls look like a pile of rocks, when they should be a bit tidier. I've looked at some of the reconstructed stone fence-lines at Gettysburg recently, and those are quite a bit neater in their construction, but there are many examples where they are not. This photo (granted it's from 75 years after the battle) seems to validate the pile-of-stones format. I've also looked closely at actual untouched stone fence-lines in the New England area, and those resemble elongated piles of stones. I'm inclined to think ours are probably okay in their appearance.

 

Photo courtesy of the National Archives (NARA).

[Kenny Noe]

Stone walls are stone walls.  Manicured or tidy walls are a gated community feature.  Seems a tacky comment from someone whose focus is not on the objective.   My 0.02¢ 

[healey36]

In hindsight, I'm surprised the question of "correct" color didn't come up, lol.

 

Hoping to get some gaming/modelling in over the next few weeks. The game group took a couple of personnel hits recently, so the expanded replay of The Angle has been deferred. Maybe we'll try it solo...

[healey36]

I drove up to Carlisle the other day to visit the USAHEC for research on a project I've been helping some guys with; on the way home, I swung by Gettysburg for a quick visit. Now's a good time to walk the field as the place is pretty empty of visitors. It had rained on and off most of the afternoon, but I managed a shot of Cemetery Ridge from the foot of the Virginia Monument on Seminary Ridge. It is generally believed that this was the central location of Lee's gathering of forces for his assault late in the afternoon of the third day. It's a sobering view:

 

 

It's roughly three quarters of a mile from here to the "Copse of Trees", the focal point of the attack per Lee's directive. From this pic, one can get an appreciation for the uphill grade and the undulation of the ground that was crossed by the Confederates as they advanced under a gradually increasing volume of fire from the Federal position. Here, on a quiet Friday afternoon in mid-March 2024, it remains a terrifying panorama.

[Peter M. Skaar]

Very interesting.  I have been to Gettysburg a number of times over the years.  I am reading a book called Gettysburg by Trudeau.  I am into the second day with the assault by Longstreet's Corps on the Union left.  The book is very good so far and provides quite a number of maps of the action over the three days.

[healey36]

Living a scant 25 miles away, I've been there more times than I can count over my 60+ years. The field has evolved considerably over time, having been heavily commercialized for decades, but now an extensive restoration process well underway. It's not without its controversy, but I think the NPS is doing a decent job of marshaling its public and private resources. For example, it's nice to see a mini-golf facility removed and the grounds restored to some semblance of its 1863 appearance.

 

I picked up a copy of Glenn Tucker's High Tide at Gettysburg: The Campaign in Pennsylvania (1958) on my most recent trip Upstate. Tucker was a native Indianan and newspaperman who eventually settled in North Carolina after a long career in journalism. He wrote a bunch of books on topics of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the American Civil War. He was an epic researcher, but his writing style is steeped in the romanticism of the Old South (IMHO), so I find much of his editorial comment suspect. Still, he was a good writer and there's stuff to be learned here.

 

As I may have mentioned previously, one of my favorite ACW books is Thomas Buell's The Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War (1997). Buell focuses on the wartime careers of three pairs of adversaries, Grant/Lee, Thomas/Hood, and Barlow/Gordon, all written against the backdrop of the war in its entirety. None are spared Buell's sharp pen. It's one of the few books that dares to cut through the accepted cliches and hyperbole so often repeated by "historians", presenting an alternative assessment of each man's wartime career. It is a remarkable book in its bluntness, and once you've read it, your opinions likely will see some amount of reconsideration.

 

If you ever get up to Schenectady, it would be worth your while to check out W. Somers Bookseller over on Union Street. It's a worm-hole of a place, fairly well organized as far as used books retailers go, and an absolute goldmine on historical topics at a fair price. Just a couple blocks off the Union College campus, it's a terrific place to visit.

[Peter M. Skaar]

Hi Healey

I did very much enjoy The Warrior Generals and have kept it in my collection.  George H. Thomas is probably my favorite Civil War General.

I just finished reading Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage by Noah Andre Trudeau.  I found it to be excellent and the book seems to be very well researched.  There are lots of maps in the book with dispositions of various forces involved and a clock showing the time a particular action is occurring.  Trudeau does debunk some of the common Gettysburg myths and legends and is pretty even handed throughout his narrative.  I would say he was very fair in his assessments.

[healey36]

Thanks Peter; I'll have to pick up a copy of Trudeau's book. I never tire of reading folks' impressions and notions regarding Gettysburg. One can get pretty wrapped up in all of the anecdotal stuff, but generally it's all good. I have to say that many of my fifty year-old personal notions regarding the battle still stand...I haven't been swayed by much of the stuff written in the last 2-3 decades. 

My son went to RPI in Troy, NY, for his engineering degree. George Thomas, a native Virginian, is buried in Troy (Oakwood Cemetery). The story is his family rejected him for his honoring his commission in the U. S. Army and serving the Union. Thomas' wife's family was from the Troy area, so he was buried there in the family plot. Oakwood is one of the great rural cemeteries in the U. S., but much of it has fallen into disrepair and struggles to be maintained. My son and I went to find his grave one nice fall day back in the early 2000's, years before the recent restoration project. If you ever get up that way, you should check it out.

As far as Thomas goes, I am a great fan as well. Time and again he proved himself in the field, and while Grant nearly sacked him leading up to his belated attack at Nashville in December 1864, Grant was effusive in his praise of Thomas in his postwar comments and his memoirs. I think Thomas was quite a bit more deliberative than Grant in his preparations, but two guys cut very closely from much the same cloth, I think.

 

Here's an interesting site post regarding Thomas' final resting place, his career, and the controversy that surrounds notions of loyalty to an oath 163 years later.

 

https://thereconstru...-grave-troy-ny/

[healey36]

Pickett's Charge, Historicon 2024:

 

 

An absolutely massive effort to recreate the closing action of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. I'm not exactly sure what the scale is here, nor the ruleset used, but hats off to the game-master. Set up on three sets of tables, the action moved right to left starting with the advance from Seminary Ridge, the pause in the advance at the Emmitsburg Pike, and lastly the assault on Cemetery Ridge.

 

The photos were taken at the same moment in combat; on the right, the Confederates resume their advance from the Emmitsburg Pike, while on the left, the men on Cemetery Ridge await the onslaught. A couple things noted: (1) in the foreground of the photo on the right, at least three Union regiments and a supporting battery of artillery have advanced a short distance to the fence line at the northern end of the Emmitsburg Pike, and (2) in the photo on the left, it looks like the commander of the 69th Pennsylvania has advanced from his position in front of the "Copse of Trees" behind the stone wall to a new position some distance beyond the stone wall (seems a rather Sickles-like move from this perspective). 

 

Anyway, looks like a terrific effort. I couldn't wait around another 3-4 hours to see how this turned out, but I bet it was unnerving, lol.