Monday, 21 July 2025

Sunday Game - ACW 1865

This game, put on by our buddy Mark, was loosely based on the last major action of the ACW in April 1865, as outlined below thanks to the ever-useful Wikipedia!

The Battle of Sailor's Creek was fought on April 6, 1865, near Farmville, Virginia, as part of the Appomattox Campaign, near the end of the American Civil War. It was the last major engagement between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, and the Army of the Potomac, under the overall direction of Union General-in-Chief Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant.

After abandoning Petersburg, the exhausted and starving Confederates headed west, hoping to re-supply at Danville or Lynchburg, before joining General Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina. But the stronger Union army kept pace with them, exploiting the rough terrain full of creeks and high bluffs, where the Confederates' long wagon trains were highly vulnerable. The two small bridges over Sailor's Creek and Little Sailor's Creek caused a bottleneck that further delayed the Confederates' attempt to escape. After some desperate hand-to-hand fighting, about a quarter of the remaining effective soldiers of the Confederate force were lost, including several generals. Witnessing the surrender from a nearby bluff, Lee made his famous despairing remark to Major General William Mahone, "My God, has the army dissolved?", to which Mahone replied, "No, General, here are troops ready to do their duty."

The battle is sometimes referenced under its old spelling as Sayler's Creek.


In our version, the Confederate Army was encamped along the road to the bridges at Sailors Creek, when the Union Army began arriving from the table end nearest the camera in the above picture. Nick, Julian, Rick and I commanded the Union forces, opposed by Chris, John, Barry and Paul.


Many of the Confederate units were classified as "tiny" in the scenario, made up of 2 -3 bases and only firing with a single dice. As soon as they received one unsaved hit, they went straight to a 3-casualty marker, making them very brittle.


The Rebs had their own victory conditions which we were unaware of but presumably included getting all their supply wagons across the river and off the other end of the table. They had to roll each turn and seemed to have quite a number of problems keeping the wagons moving!


The Union start arriving - I had three brigades of about 6-8 regiments each, nearest the camera, Julian had an artillery division of 8 standard sized batteries in the centre, Nick had roughly the same number of infantry as me on the far side, and Rick commanded 11 units of cavalry, that could come on any of the roads om the far side table edge.


The Rebels start to move to counter the Union threat



"There's Rebs in them woods, boys!"




Nick on our left advances against the main blocking force, commanded by Chris.


John commanded the Rebs opposing my command and had quickly occupied the woods, which are a very hard prospect under Marks rules .....sigh!


Meanwhile, the other two Confederate commanders got their troops moving towards the escape route in columns of march.


The head of the wagon train reaches Sailors Creek Bridge


View from behind Chris's lines as his large number of small units deploy to slow down Nicks full strength Union Brigades



The leading regiments of my first brigade enter the woods to try to dislodge the Rebs. In a recent change to his rules, Mark has made fighting in woods very hard. Each side rolls dice depending on the size of the units - in this case I had two standard units (3 D6) and one small unit (2 D6) against the three Rebs who were all small units. The combat works like this; each side rolls, needing 5 or 6 for a hit. A draw means neither side takes a hit, a win by one, means the loser takes a hit, a win by 2 means the loser is driven out of the woods and a win by 3 or more means the loser routs out of the woods - but rolling 3 dice to 2, it can take a long time to get any result at all and if you have to go all the way to breaking a units morale, they have to accumulate six hits.


To the rear of the woods, John deployed the remainder of his troops, many of whom were raw.


On our left flank, Nicks leading regiments were getting stuck into Chris, supported by Julians massed guns.


But the Rebs had some artillery of their own!


View from the Union starting end, showing the "traffic jam" of Union units on our right (my command) This was caused by the space required for Julian to deploy 8 batteries of artillery between Nick and me, and meant I had very little room to deploy my brigades (in fact, I worked out afterwards, all the fighting was basically done by one of the three brigades - and Nick didn't even bother bringing on one of his brigades as there was no room for them to do anything!) On the centre left of the image, you can see the Union cavalry harassing Barrys Rebs.


 


Success! After a relatively brief tussle (two or three rounds of melee) I managed to beat one of Johns units by two and pushed them out of the wood...


But they were immediately replaced by a fourth unit in the next Confederate phase- see why fighting in woods is so difficult?!



General Custers boys - yes, it was HIM! - rampaging through the Confederate lines



To the west, the wagon train continues to make (slow) progress towards the escape route, as Reb infantry columns attempt to march to salvation as well.


My traffic jam again, as three regiments fight in the wood and the remainder of their brigade waits to exploit any success, the other two brigades try to squeeze around between the woods and the Union gun line.


The fight in the woods continues but I was slowly gaining the upper hand....


Chris was still putting up a good fight against Nicks superior numbers - helped significantly by some amazing saving rolls, particularly against hits from the Union artillery!


Custers men still cutting swathes through the Rebs 


A couple of views looking east and showing the Union cavalry rampaging around the Confederates rear, threatening to cut off their line of retreat!



Some of the cavalry units took up a central position to the rear of Chris and dismounted to act as a block against which Nick could hammer them!



Chris was quick to put several infantry units against the dismounted cavalrymen!



The Union cavalry almost got to the slowly moving Rebel wagon train!


They dispatched the Confederate unit but then had to fall back to reform!


The Rebs are in disarray as Union cavalry spreads panic in their rear!


I finally managed to break another Reb unit and make a flank attack on the adjacent Rebel line - 7 dice to 2 - and I managed a 2 all draw with John ....grrrrr!


The rest of my command still waiting for a gap to exploit


Rebs being pushed back from their defensive positions, finally!



A second charge by the Union produced a better result!



John captured the winning roll!



The Union cavalry in the farm remounted and ready to continue the fight, although by now they were carrying quite a few casualty markers.....


"They are breakin' boys, they are breakin'!" Ok, wrong side, that quote should be a Reb general!



Mounted cavalry extract some revenge on Chris's command.



Some of the Rebs have made it into the farmyard as the cavalry head off.


Leaving a couple of forlorn units as a rear guard, most of Johns Rebs start heading for the exit!


Although quite vociferous in his complaints about lack of support from the infantry, General Custers command has taken a very heavy toll on the Reb infantry - Rick virtually wiped out Barrys entire command and caught a couple of Pauls units too.




A couple of final views as the action wound down around 4pm




Upon seeing the survivors streaming along the road, Lee exclaimed in front of Major General William Mahone, "My God, has the army dissolved?"


 General Mahone replied, "No, General, here are troops ready to do their duty." Touched by the faithful duty of his men, Lee told Mahone, "Yes, there are still some true men left ... Will you please keep those people back?"

Mahone's division remained on the opposite bank covering the escape of the fugitives but was not engaged in more combat

Captain Tom Custer, brother of Brigadier General (Brevet Major General) George Armstrong Custer, received a second Medal of Honor in four days for his actions in this battle. This followed his first medal for actions at the Battle of Namozine Church on April 3, 1865.

General Philip Sheridan declared that the battle had been so overshadowed by Lee's surrender three days later that it was never accorded the prominence it deserved.

Mark had kept track of Reb loses throughout the day and upon toting up the figures, he declared the game a marginal Union victory - by one point! It certainly felt marginal to me - I think I destroyed three or four of Johns units, but the bulk of them got away. Nick had destroyed a lot of Chris's force, however, and as mentioned, Custers cavalry (Rick) decimated Barrys Rebs. Unfortunately for Paul, and much against his aggressive character, his command was the one closest to the exit point, so he was mostly confined to activating the wagon train and marching his command off in the direction of Lynchburg