The players have now finished their 18th turn (Day 18 of the campaign) and there has been some action, with a decisive battle looming on the final two days of this game. (The game runs 20 turns). The Northern player has driven down the east side of the Shenandoah Valley, while the Southern player has held the west side and carefully destroyed the bridges across the river to hinder the Federal advance. But with the end of the game approaching, the Northern player has moved near the Rebel depot at Port Republic. Realizing this, the Southern commander has begun shifting his forces into Port Republic and fortifying, in the expectation that the Federal forces will attack there in hopes of winning the game. (The respective depots are the objective in the game, to give some direction to the players and a clear goal to win or lose. Loss of your depot means you lose the game.) The Northern player did get a break a couple of turns ago, when he was able to locate fords just north of the Confederate depot and pushed a defending Rebel brigade from the location. This has allowed the Federal troops to get into position to attack Port Republic. The troops of both armies have been consolidating in and around Port Republic in the last few days. But there are still scattered forces elsewhere in the Valley, and two of these forces had a recent battle at Harrisonburg. There, the Federal troops attacked entrenched Rebels, but were thrown back. Confederate artillery broke up the attack and one of the Federal commanders was wounded early in the assault, which then sputtered out. It will all come down to the Battle of Port Republic. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #128 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Solo Wargamers Association. 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