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| From the Editor's Desk by Scott Mingus |
| Editor Scott Mingus focuses on the fact that many battles
occurred on individuals' property, affecting their livelihood
and quality of life for years and even decades to come.
This issue of charge! features five wargame scenarios, the
most ever to appear in one issue of the newsletter.
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Reflections by Scott Mingus
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Scott discusses the tragic shooting of five Amish girls
in his area, and goes on to reproduce Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving
proclamation.
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| Brown's Mill: Saturday,
July 30, 1864 Newnan, Georgia by Scott Mingus |
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Scenario: Brown's Mill
Type: Historical
Date: July 30, 1864
Game Rules: Johnny Reb 3
Scale: 15mm
Table Size: 5' x 6'
Time (Turns): 12:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. (16 turns in JR3)
Units:
Union - Army of the Cumberland, 1st Cavalry Division
Confederate - Various Cavalry from the Army of Mississippi and Army of
Tennessee
William T. Sherman sent a number of different cavalry raids against the
supply lines running to John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee
stationed in Atlanta. Several of the raids ended in disaster or
near disaster, including this one. Brig. Gen. Edward M. McCook
and his cavalry division had been sent to cut the railroads running
into Atlanta from the southwest. On his way back to Sherman's
army, McCook faced a large Confederate cavalry force at Brown's Mill,
near Newnan, Georgia, losing over 1,000 men in the ensuing fight.
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| Moment of Glory: Hood's
Fight at Mt. Zion Church (Kolb's Farm) June 22, 1864 by Scott
Monsour |
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Scenario: Kolb's Farm
Type: Historical
Date: June 22, 1864
Game Rules: Rally Round the Flag
Scale: 15mm
Table Size: Unknown
Time (Turns): 12 turns in RRtF
Units:
Union - Alpheus Williams' Division, XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland
Confederate - Stevenson's Division, Hood's Corps, Army of
Tennessee
Scott Monsour, designer of the Rally Round the Flag set of
miniatures rules, presents a scenario for use with these rules.
In what was a prelude to the big battle at Kennesaw Mountain,
John Bell Hood launched a series of attacks against a Yankee
column that was trying to get around the Confederate left
flank. Hood succeeded in stopping this probe, but he
lost over 1,000 men at a cost to the Yankees of only 350.
Joe Johnston was not impressed with this performance, saying
Hood had simply been trying to reclaim "his reputation as
an aggressive commander."
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| Page 10 |
| The Battle of Olustee: A Recreation
by Daniel Erdman (with thanks to David Glenn) |
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Scenario: The Battle of Olustee
Type: Historical
Date: February 20, 1864
Game Rules: Johnny Reb 2 (adaptable for other rules as well)
Scale: 1/72 Figures
Table Size: 6' x 12'
Time (Turns): 10+ turns in JR2
Units:
Union - Seymour's Division
Confederate - Finnegan's Division
The Battle of Olustee occurred in early 1864 between to evenly matched
forces. However, the Confederates managed to drive the Yankees
from the field, saving large portions of Florida for the Confederate
cause. The evenly matched nature of the battle allows this one to
be refought many times with wildly different results.
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| Lewis's Farm (Quaker Road):
March 29, 1865 Dinwiddie, Virginia by Christopher Maes |
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Scenario: Lewis's Farm
Type: Historical
Date: March 29, 1865
Game Rules: Johnny Reb 3
Scale: 15mm
Table Size: 5' x 6'
Time (Turns): 3:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. (7 turns in JR3)
Units:
Union - Elements of V Corps, Army of the Potomac
Confederate - Johnson's Division, Fourth Corps, Army of Northern
Virginia
The Battle of Lewis's Farm occurred as Grant's spring offensive to
force Lee out of the Petersburg trenches got underway. Joshua
Lawrence Chamberlain led his two regiment brigade against the
Confederate earthworks straddled across the Quaker Road. These
works protected the valuable Boydton Plank Road, one of the last
remaining Confederate supply routes. Chamberlain was wounded in
the action, but his men managed to capture the enemy earthworks by the
end of the action.
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The 3-inch Ordnance Rifle by Philip M. Cole
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Phil Cole, author of Civil War Artillery at Gettysburg,
covers the 3-inch Ordnance Rifle in this article. One of the
three most popular pieces of Civil War artillery, the Ordnance Rifle
had some advantages over the Parrott Rifle and the Napoleon smoothbore
gun. It was cast of wrought iron, making it extremely
reliable and not at all prone to bursting. It was also light,
being a favored weapon of horse artillery units. A third
advantage was its great accuracy at long range. The 3-inch
Ordnance Rifle was a formidable weapon in the arsenals of both sides
during the Civil War.
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| Harris Farm (Alsop's Farm):
Thursday, May 19, 1864, Virginia by Paul Stevenson |
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Scenario: Harris Farm (end of the Spotsylvania Campaign)
Type: Historical
Date: May 19, 1864
Game Rules: Johnny Reb 2
Scale: 15mm
Table Size: ?
Time (Turns): 6:00 P.M. to 8:40 P.M. (9 turns in JR2)
Units:
Union - Elements of Tyler's and Kitching's Heavy Artillery Divisions,
Army of the Potomac
Confederate - Rodes' and Early's Second Corps divisions, Army of
Northern Virginia
The Battle of Harris Farm was a battle of contrasts. The lean,
mean fighting men of Ewell's Second Corps had been through a lot in the
war, from the Shenandoah Valley all the way to the Overland
Campaign. Their Union opponents were bloated Heavy Artillery
regiments, large as veteran brigades in many cases, but still very
green from their time manning the fortifications around Washington,
D.C. In this particular battle, Early was trying to locate the
Union right flank. Grant had mostly pulled out and was headed
southeast to the North Anna River, but the Heavy Artillery regiments
remained. In a somewhat surprising outcome, the Heavies gave as
good as they got and stopped Ewell's veterans cold.
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| JR3 and the Hex Grid, Part
II by Dale Bley |
| Dale Bley continues his look at
modifying the JRIII rules to work with hexes. In this
issue, he goes over the supplies needed for modeling hexes
and shows readers how to model an open ground hex, a road
hex, streams and ravines, elevated hexes, and wooded hexes.
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| Battlefield Smoke by D. W. Fraser |
Civil War battlefields quickly became
filled with smoke as the black powder weapons of the day were fired,
causing confusion and low visibility. The author covers alternate
rules for Johnny Reb 3 meant to simulate these conditions. A
table is provided to show how much smoke obscures targets after a given
number of fires by a unit. In addition, Fraser suggests using
cotton balls to visually simulate the smoke on the battlefield.
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28 |
| The Sutler's
Corner |
Book Review: Command and Communication Frictions in the
Gettysburg Campaign reviewed by Scott Mingus
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Editor
Scott Mingus reviews Phil Cole's book, Command and Communication Frictions in the
Gettysburg Campaign, giving it a favorable review.
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