THE GAME REPLAY

The Union grand strategic design was to concentrate Fremont and Schenk at McDowell, Banks, Kelly and Saxton at Winchester and Shields and Blenker at Centreville. There was then to be a concentric assault on the Valley with Fremont advancing on Staunton and then Meechums Depot, Banks on Harrisonburg and Shields on Conrads Store (via Manassas Gap and Front Royal). As these forces advanced it was hoped that at least two should always be in supporting distance of one another.

The CinC (a Napoleonic rather than ACW buff) also planned to attack where Jackson wasn't and fall back or defend where he was. The two main areas of Union concern were Winchester which was felt to be the key area in the north (if the Confederates took this they could exploit to almost anywhere, probably winning the campaign) or an 'end run' to Centreville. The Union plan aimed to minimise these threats as well as going onto the offensive. In addition the Union were quite prepared to fight a campaign of attrition - they were happy to sacrifice one force pinning the Confederates if another could intervene immediately after (or better still, support it whilst the battle was still in progress).

The Union later admiired that if they had known exactly how poor their leaders were before the game they might have adopted a somewhat different plan. What the Union didn't want was the Confederates dancing around, landing a blow and ducking away again with Union forces having to lumber off in pursuit never knowing when or where the Confederates would pop up again.

The Confederate plan was to immediately rush Ewell to Johnson and for this combined force to knock out any Union forces at McDowell (removing the immediate threat to the 'escape route' out of the Valley) whilst Jackson held the north. Johnson would then hold Jennings Gap, Ewell would join Jackson and together they would advance on Manassas Gap, hopefully throwing the Union off balance and/or destroying any forces in this area and then to 'play it by ear' - either exploiting out of the Valley or moving to attack the flank of any Union advance from Winchester.

The Confederate plan started well, Ewell and Johnson caught Schenk at Mcdowell who fought a desperate holding action waiting for Fremont to arrive. Unfortunately, not only did Fremont arrive late he also threw a string of 1s when trying to move his units. Although some pressure was put on the Confederate right flank Schenk was killed and his division scattered. Fremont retired to Franklin.

The Confederates rested at Macdowell and then carried on with their plan . Fremont cautiously fol lowed up to Mcdowell and then refused to move again despite increasingly strident orders from the Union CinC.

Jackson and Ewell concentrated and then advanced on Front Royal. Here they met Shields (meanwhile Banks was lurching forward from Winchester bound for Strasburg). After a fairly desperate struggle characterised by the Union launching charge after charge (which also saw the destruction of the 'Stonewall' brigade) it was ruled that the Confederates held the field but Shields was intact enough to avoid having to retreat (if he wished).

The following day the battle resumed and again the Union charged (probably a mistake). After initial success they were forced onto the defensive and a string of messengers were sent to Strasburg asking Banks to 'hurry up'. He never did, Shields was captured, his depot overrun and the remnants of his force fell back to Manassas Gap completely shattared. Note that in this battle both sides were aware that Banks might arrive. Also note that in this battle as neither side had rested or reorganised many units started as Worn or even Spent.

The Confederates, in desperate need to rest and reorganise after two days of savage fighting elected to spend the next day in place (they also wanted to make maximum use of the depot they had captured). Johnson was summoned from Staunton but it would be several days before he could intervene in the north. Unfortunately for them Banks finally stirred and arrived at Front Royal with his 3 divisions.

The Headless Chicken Frenzy

Jackson, not fully realising how many men Banks had and unwilling to abandon his wounded and the captured depot elected to try and hold him at bay until nightfall. As Union troops poured onto the table the Confederate high command went into 'headless chicken frenzy' with some units adopting the Union tactics of desperate bayonet charges to disrupt the enemy attack and others frantically digging in with little or no co-ordination between the two. The result was a quick plunge into 'shambles mode' which the Union force took full advantage of.

By nightfall Jackson was captured and his army completely destroyed apart from a single infantry brigade and a horse battery which had escaped towards Luray. The Confederates later admitted that fighting the second battle against Shields had probably been a mistake and not 'bugging out' immediately after it had been insane. They had pushed for a dramatic and early battlefield win and had forgotten about always 'mystifying, misleading and surprising'.

The campaign had ended in a decisive Union win after 4 battles and about 14 turns. It had taken about 3 months real time to play (the order cycle was run on a fairly relaxed 2 week schedule) and generated 4 extremely enjoyable tabletop encounters - which had been its primary objective.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In the above campaign the Confederates always had more men on the battlefield than the Union (apart from the last one). However this advantage was quite often nullified as large parts of the Confederate army tended to set off on wide flanking marches - whilst the Union unexpectedly launched massive attacks in the centre - so for most of the battle actual numbers engaged tended to be even.

There was some debate over whether Ewell should have been exceptional (historically he probably wasn't) as this made it almost impossible for the Union to break Confederate troops - but as they hardly ever did in the Valley is this a problem? Nevertheless, before starting the campaign I did have the idea of making Ewell 'normal' and Jackson 'super exceptional' (+4/+3 under Fire & Fury). You may wish to experiment with this.

There are possibly a couple of shortcomings in Fire & Fury revealed in this campaign: firstly, the very simplistic command control system and secondly, the lack of any sort of army morale system. There's been a lot of debate about this at the Exiles and whilst generally people are happy to do without these (and can accept why they are not present) there are situations where their lack is sometimes felt and possibly the Valley campaign is one of these. The Union players were extremely 'gung ho' and happy to take severe battlefield losses if the same thing was happening to the Confederates. Historically this tended not to be the case.

For a refight of 1st Bull Run (Ed - a future article we all hope!) I used an army morale system where if an army lost a certain percentage of its force all movement/ morale die rolls were reduced by one, if a larger percentage then two and this seemed to work quite well and might be applicable to this campaign. However, as the forces involved are not large I think it is less of a problem and I am wary of fiddling with a system which is both elegantly simple and works extremely well.

Playing a campaign led to some curiosities which I think are worth remarking on. The battles tended to be taken rather more seriously than the normal evening games by all concerned. Players perception on what was going on in the campaign was interesting. In all the battles (apart from the last) both sides thought that losses had been about equal when actually they were about 2:1 in favour of the Confederates. This led to both sides making strategic decisions which with hindsight they regretted.

The Union thought their commanders were better than they were especially Shields who they felt to be very good indeed. This was probably because he tended to throw good movement dice - so he was actually lucky rather than good, but then Napoleon thought this was a more valuable trait!

This perception of Shields did lead to the Union sticking him out on a limb which could have ended in disaster- but he was lucky again! The Confederates always believed that Winchester was too strong to be attacked (I've no idea why- they never even bothered to probe it with their cavalry). Banks et al didn't concentrate there until about turn 8. The Union were always rather put out by the number of Confederate guns fielded. The Confederates had an odd perception about their own and the Union cavalry. At Mcdowell the Confederate cavalry charged and narrowly lost a melee, meanwhile the only part of Fremont's force which really got engaged was the Union cavalry which fought dismounted - and rolled a string of 10s.

From this the Confederates deduced firstly that the Union cavalry was very good and secondly their cavalry was no good fighting mounted and that on the battlefield they should in future hold their cavalry back, preferably dismounted, to deal with the Union cavalry attacks. This became all the more weird as the Union, not at all impressed with their own cavalry, tended to fight battles without it as it was usually off scouting in an adjacent box (the Union were always paranoid about Jackson suddenly attacking them from an unexpected direction). The Union were of course delighted by the inactivity of the enemy cavalry.

For me, one of the joys of running a campaign is listening to the players as they explain what they think is going on whilst I know the true picture. I might well use this system for other small Civil War campaigns. Currently I am toying with the Red River or possibly the Union offensive against the Valley later in the war.

Bibliography

R. Johnson and C. Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War
S. Foote, The Civil War
D. Chandler, Atlas of Military Strategy

WARNING!

If you will be playing this scenario, DO NOT look at the Umpire Rules or Orders of Battle for either side as the capabilities of various leaders and units should not be hidden from both sides! You probably shouldn't read the replay, either, as it will influence your own deployments and uses. You have been warned.

Shenadoah Order of Battle (Confederate and Union)
Shenadoah Introduction
Umpire Rules, Hints, and Tips
Game Map

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com