Yesterday nine of us got together for the first game of the year - the latest start to the gaming season that I can recall for a long time. The game was an American Civil War meeting engagement with eight Confederate brigades facing ten Union. Although there were objectives allocated, it as really just a good old scrap and this report is almost entirely from my perspective because I didn't move around the table too much.
I was in the Union side and held the left centre with two brigades of five regiments, a battery and a brigade of two small cavalry regiments. In front of me was a large low hill that looked like a nice position so there I headed. I threw that cavalry forward on the left to dismount behind a stone wall to cover the deployment of the battery. One infantry brigade was deployed in open ground while the other had to squeeze in a fence lined lane to debouche into the open ground beyond.
The action developed quickly as two Confederate brigades closed in on me, one direct in front and one from the left. The dismounted cavalry were quickly engaged in heavy skirmishing.
My fellow commanders took position. To my immediate right ...
...and to the extreme right of the line.
On my front both sides crested the hill at the same time and a vicious firefight ensured, in which the Confederates suffered more heavily.
On my left the Confederates swung in with a brigade. I withdrew the dismounted cavalry to support the battery while my left hand brigade formed to face the threat.
Back on the hill my colleague to my right charged a badly knocked about rebel unit. The rebs had had enough and scattered. The regiment then wheeled left at caught the rebel battery in the flank, routing the gunners.
The rebel cavalry ploughed into the now disordered infantry and routed them. But the cavalry was in a poor position and was soon shot to pieces and forced to withdraw.
The Confederates to my front were now in poor shape and much of the brigade skedaddled, but more were coming up and a few of my units were worse for wear. My left was holding and reinforcements were on their way to shore up the position.
To my right there was heavy fighting with both sides taking losses.
To my left both sides skirmished over a difficult stream.
Back on the hill the second Confederate brigade came up. My firing was ineffectual, but their's was not and two of my regiments were not in the best shape. The Rebs attacked with three regiments.
In the ensuing fight my right hand unit held on, just, pushing the Rebs back through the unit behind them. In the centre my unit was driven back, but on the left my unit, a veteran outfit, smashed the Rebs, scattering them to the wind and then wheeled onto the flank of the next reb unit, scattering it as well. The rebel brigade, with four out of five of its units destroyed, shaken or disrupted, had had enough and it quit the field, leaving the hill to me and my battered brigade.
My left was now secured by the arrival of two fresh brigades.
But it wasn't over yet. The brigades to my right were hard pressed and the Confederates were threatening my right on the hill. By this point I had pulled the cavalry out of the fight and remounted them. They moved to plug the gap on my right, but with only two small units the chance of doing anything serious was doubtful.
But fate worked in my favour. A Reb regiment tried to take out a battery on my right but was driven off in rout, bursting through another unit and shaking it in the process.
Here was the cavalry's chance and they rode down the shaken rebels, scattering them, then breaking through onto the routers and catching another unit in the flank. Three rebel units were dispersed in a single turn.
The Rebs opposite our right centre collapsed completely. The whole of the centre was ours. Only on the flanks were the Confederates in any sort of shape...in fact on the extreme right neither side had seriously committed, with the Rebs only coming on the table in the last few turns. They looked very pretty.
Victory went the Union.
