THE IDEA
Maryland Fifth Regiment waits to receive the British assault. Photo by the author.
On September 14, 2002, the Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers (HAWKs) presented a demonstration of historical miniatures gaming at the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore. The event was the culmination of a process that began while I was researching my 25mm War of 1812 project for Historicon 2002. I ran three games from the 1814 Maryland Campaign - Bladensburg, North Point, and an ahistorical assault on the Baltimore defenses. In addition to the many books I used, I consulted all the local sources and authorities I could find.
Through the Fort McHenry web site (http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/-etowner/patriot.htmi), I was referred to the fort's official historian, Park Ranger Scott Sheads. I contacted Scott and made an appointment. He gave me an entire December afternoon showing me books, answering all the questions he could and pointing me to sources for others, while I told him about miniatures gaming and showed him some War of 1812 figures (mostly unpainted at this point). Finally, as I was about to depart, he said, "Our big event here is Defenders' Day in September. If your guys would like to do some kind of exhibit, I'm sure we can make some arrangement." Defenders' Day is a Maryland holiday marking the repulse of the 1814 British invasion. For some time, the HAWKs had been contemplating sites where we could do a gaming demonstration mall, library, something like that. Fort McHenry was clearly a great opportunity.
THE PLAN
In April, after running my Battle of North Point game at Pointcon, I returned to the fort. I showed Scott some more figures, now painted, and pictures of the game. He introduced me to Ranger Vince Vaise who is in charge of living history at the fort and coordinates the Defenders' Day events. Vince was very excited at the prospect of a Battle of North Point game at the fort. Since the battle was part of the 1814 defense of Baltimore, it has a natural connection. We discussed some preliminary ideas and made a plan for a group of the HAWKS to visit the fort and work out details. Four of us returned about a month later and Vince showed us the room that would be available to us. It was a little small and needed some additional lighting, but we agreed that it would serve. We asked for tables, skirts, stanchions fans and chairs. Vince said he could provide all. I'd feared there would be some administrative problems or paperwork to deal with (this is the federal government, after all), but that was it, we were done. We suggested that we could set the demo up so that any interested visitor to step into the game and play as much or as little as he wanted. Vince found this "interactive exhibit" aspect particularly appealing.
THE PREPARATIONS
Preparations got into high gear after Historicon. The first decision to make was how long we'd run the demo. The rangers offered to let us run the demo both Saturday and Sunday. Since this is a new activity for us we chose to be conservative and just do Saturday. We considered this something of an experiment, which if it went well, might become an annual HAWKs event. If so, we might expand into Sunday in the future.
We needed to address several objectives - exposing the hobby, promoting the club and teaching some history (an especially important consideration because that's what the fort was getting out of this). In addition to running a demo game, we had to have literature to hand out that explains the hobby and provides contact information for interested visitors to follow up. We made up some signs and handouts to accomplish this. We prepared a list of clubs with points of contacts for the mid Atlantic area and separate contact cards for the HAWKs. There'd be convention fliers available for the HAWKs' Barrage VII, NOVAG's Gamecon 17 and HMGS East's Fall In! all of which were coming up within two months of the demo. Two of the HAWKS, Buck Surdu and Rob Dean, wrote up a nice introduction to the hobby that we could hand out.
Because we would be participating in a historical commemoration, we thought it appropriate to prescript the maneuvers and tactical decisions to match the historical events as closely as possible. By doing this we could use the game to teach the history of the battle: "You can see that the 4th Foot is just completing its flank march." This would be a hybrid combining properties of a game and a demo. We'd have HAWKs playing the game, each with goal of replicating the decisions of his historical counterpart, while the rules and the dice determined the results. A week prior to the event, we had a rehearsal to walk the players through their parts and make sure all knew the rules. As we discussed with Ranger Vaise, we'd encourage any interested visitor to step into the game for a test drive. Visitors in the game would be allowed to make the decisions of their own choice as a gamer normally would.
THE BATTLE
Kurt Schlegel (right) and Patrick Chambers (left) square off in the game while Rob Dean tells re-enactors and tourists about the hobby.
The scenario we ran was the Battle of North Point. This was a delaying action in the defense of Baltimore that preceded the more famous naval bombardment. On September 12, 1814, General John Stricker led his 3rd Brigade of Maryland Militia (3200 men) out to meet the approaching British force of 4500, mostly Wellington's veterans, on the narrow peninsula between the Patapsco and Back Rivers. Stricker formed his line behind a fence at the edge of a farm clearing. Upon learning from cavalry patrols that the British were relaxing over lunch beyond the next woods, he sent an advance party of about 150 to harass them. In the resulting skirmish, British General Ross, who moments before had boasted that he'd "supp in Baltimore tonight or in hell," was mortally wounded. Colonel Arthur Brooke was summoned to assume command as the militia withdrew, their mission accomplished.
Brooke resumed the march to Baltimore and discovered Stricker's line awaiting him. He quickly decided on a plan. He'd use his light troops as a screen while he formed his main battle line and sent a battalion through some woods around the Maryland left. Stricker, detecting the flank march, brought his two second line regiments up - one to extend the line and the other to refuse the flank. This last regiment got confused by the complex maneuver, and while still in disorder saw the approaching British flank attack. They bolted, taking half the neighboring regiment with them. Heavily outnumbered and outflanked, the rest of the Maryland brigade couldn't hold the field long, but they stood firmly and exchanged volleys with the redcoats as long as they could. On Stricker's order, they fell back, in some disorder, and reformed on a reserve regiment stationed on high ground beyond the next clearing. Brooke chose not to try to drive them off until after his troops were reformed. At dusk, Stricker ordered a withdrawal to the main Baltimore line in accordance with his orders.
The next day, as the Royal Navy bomb ketches and rocket ship opened fire on Fort McHenry, Brooke resumed the march. Further delayed by felled trees, he sighted the main works of Baltimore at late morning. Thanks to Stricker's delaying action, the fifteen mile march had cost the veteran redcoats 30 hours and 350 casualties including their beloved general. The British army had expected Baltimore to be as easy as Washington had been. Now they surveyed the field works and redoubts and estimated they contained 20,000 men and 100 guns. Judging the cost to be too high, they waited into the night for the Navy to overwhelm the harbor defenses and take the landward works in flank. When it was clear that Fort McHenry's guns were too much for the fleet, the army and then the ships withdrew in the early hours of September 14, 1814. The fort's commander, Major George Armistead, watched the fleet dropping down the Patapsco. The heavy weather that had forced him to fly the small "storm flag" through the night having broken, at 9:00 AM he ordered his huge banner raised. On the river, Francis Scott Key saw the flag and was inspired.
THE EVENT
On September 14, 2002, the HAWKs arrived at the fort at 8:30 and began to set up. At 9:00 AM, a reenactor portraying Major Armistead reviewed the garrison and ordered the large banner raised. After pausing for the ceremony, we got started. Ranger Vaise had everything he'd promised in place when we arrived. The available room being too small for the full sized convention game, I scaled it down to a 5'x6' table and four players. This worked very nicely for the purpose at hand. Four HAWKs were players (Todd Harland-White, Kurt Schlegel, Patrick Chambers and myself), two others (Rob Dean and Buck Surdu) were on duty to meet the public and answer questions, while Chris and Jenn Palmer took pictures and gave general support.
The room had only one entrance, on the narrow end. We blocked the game off from direct access with a rope, giving the visitors a 50 yard line view. We had a small table to one side of the door on which we had a display case with a selection of figures designed to visually show the range of figure sizes and periods that the hobby has to offer, and the signs and handouts described above.
In the time we were there we ran the game twice. During that time about 3000 people visited the fort grounds and close to 350 visitors came in to take a look, a good showing according to Ranger Vaise. Most of the visitors were from Central Maryland, DC and Pennsylvania. As each group entered, we gave them a quick summary of what was going on and answered their questions. There were a lot of questions: about the demo, gaming in general, the club and the history. In general, people seemed very interested. We estimate that 15% took one or more handouts home. Many told us of friends or relatives who might be interested, so we can expect to reach a few potential garners second hand. Three youngsters took us up on our offer to test drive the game for a turn or two each.
We got a lot of attention from the reenactors who were involved in the fort's activities - especially those whose units were on the game table. One of the park rangers saw what we were doing, left the room and returned with a stack of pictures of his 15mm Napoleonic games.
THE RESULTS
One of the project's goals was to promote the hobby. We don't know if we made much of an impact. Time will tell. We can say for certain that about 350 people who did not know historical miniatures gaming existed before know about it now. We may have some new gamers coming around for game nights or our convention. But whatever the impact, it was pure fun. It's hard to imagine what can beat the experience of playing the Battle of North Point ten yards from the Fort McHenry flag staff with a full sized reproduction of the 42 by 30 foot Star Spangled Banner flying in the breeze.
Vince Vaise called the HAWKs' exhibit "a great addition to the program." He's hoping we can return in 2003. The probability is very high, and we've even started discussing a demo in the spring either on a regular weekend or doing an ACW game during the fort's Civil War Weekend. Soon after we'd started the game, Ranger Sheads brought a Harper's Ferry ranger along to see us. She said she'd like to have an ACW demo out there sometime.
We learned a few lessons to refine our act, but just in the details really. The bottom line is that we've proved to ourselves that a public demo at a historical site is worth doing, even if just for the fun alone, and now we have a workable model for what a wargame group can do to expose the hobby to the public in an entertaining and informative way.
On the whole it was a great success. We'll do this again and investigate expansion to other sites like Harper's Ferry. If your gaming club is near one or more historical sites, we highly recommend that you give this a try. We'll be more than glad to share our experiences and provide any other help we can.
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