Foreword

My interest in the American Civil War has been connected to wargaming from the start--it actually originated from my reading about A Gleam of Bayonets (another Antietam title) in a local newsletter. From then on, though I never bought the game, I became progressively fascinated with the subject, and now I regularly fill my suitcases with books and games every time I come to your country. Still, at that time I couldn't find a design that combined realism and a reasonable playing time into a series package with good graphics and a small playing surface; my table can take two maps only with some difficulty. When I literally stumbled onto a CWB game in an area store, I hoped that that could be it. I have since been hooked on the CWB (and have flooded The Gamers' fax machine with questions).

Moreover, the sparseness of wargaming in Italy, or in my area at least, makes solitaire suitability almost a prerequisite. Add that to the overwhelming popularity of Napoleonics and WW2 among these rare Italian hobbyists, and you'll find the likelihood of having somebody in your area who is interested in the Civil War--to say nothing of Civil War gaming--almost nonexistent. So, while you constantly pray for a live opponent, you must consider solitaire play more than just an option when buying your games.

The purpose of this article is to go through a solo game of In their Quiet Fields II, discussing the game's possibilities for solitaire play. I played this game in my reading room in a cold February week, doing one or two turns during weekdays and six to eight turns per day in the final weekend.

Solitairing the Battle Plans

ITQF II is, in my opinion, one of the CWB games most suited to solo play. The differences between the two armies could not be more extreme. The Confederates, pinned with their backs to the Potomac and stripped bare of manpower, are strictly on the defensive; but they have excellent officers and still have enough fight in them to deliver the Federals a serious blow, given the chance. In contrast, the Union has to attack and dislodge the Rebels to win; their overwhelming superiority in numbers is offset by lower morale ratings, bad commanders, and the McClellan Point Chart, which keep the Union player from going at the Confederates with all his might or makes him pay dearly in victory points if he does so.

A situation like that simplifies the formulation of the battle plans for both sides by a single player: they are, actually, almost dictated by their opposite conditions. The Union will attack and try to dislodge the Rebels from prominent terrain features, paying for victory points in blood while trying to accomplish as much as possible with the fewest possible men to keep the McClellan Point count from skyrocketing. The strategic choices for the Union in this game are not what to do--a frontal assault is almost unavoidable--but rather how, when, and with how many troops to assault the strong but undermanned Rebel positions.

The game rules--specifically the need to save McClellan Points--force the Army of the Potomac to commit as few corps as possible at the same time and to be governed by the course of events, just as their real-life commander had intended. These rules produce a series of uncoordinated but extremely ferocious assaults, since the system penalizes protracted attacks by more than one corps. The sense of urgency makes a high number of close combats very likely--just as actually happened--in the attempt to drive the enemy in the shortest possible time. On the other hand, the Confederates have few available choices but to react as promptly as they can to the various Federal threats, using reinforcements to plug holes in their lines as they form and making the enemy pay hard for whatever they will eventually get.

Good solitaire suitability is the logical consequence of the narrow margins both sides have to make initial battle plans substantially different form the above. So the solitaire player can sit back and enjoy the show, having the main guidelines set for him, while at the same time preserving all the options of a CWB game.

Battle Narrative

The full battle scenario starts at 5:30 am, with 1 Corps already committed and on its way to the West Woods and the Dunker Church and Mansfield's 12 Corps with orders in D1 status to support 1 Corps. Trying to avoid a completely frontal attack, I gambled for, and obtained, initiative with Hooker on the very first turn. Doubleday's 1st Division was sent to turn the Rebel left after disposing of the guns placed on Nicodemus Hill. This posed a problem typical of solitaire gaming: How were the Confederates supposed to react? At that time, the movement of the 1st Division could still be interpreted as nothing more than a reconnaissance in force with the attempt to dislodge the guns from an enfilading position; so I let the Confederates in the West Woods (most of whom had their LOS to the ridge blocked) sit still until Doubleday came in sight.

The guns were taken by 6:30 at a heavy cost: Doubleday himself was wounded, one brigade was routed, and another was wrecked from stragglers. The whole division could not be brought to bear until 7:30; by that time, the whole line was ablaze. Due to the McClellan factor, I had decided that the Federals had better force the issue soon, so I committed the full power of 1 Corps immediately after a one-turn artillery barrage, which had achieved no effect. Hooker had fallen down hard on the West Woods right after Doubleday engaged the guns on his right; now the 1st Division had recovered and was going on to turn Hood's left flank around the West Woods.

Jackson was moved into the action to give Hood in-person orders through initiative: the situation was suddenly critical and no time could be spared to wait for orders from Lee. Although this saved the Confederates' left from possible destruction--orders were successfully issued the next turn, and the attack was repulsed--Stonewall was hit while directing his troops and went to rest under the shade of the trees a little earlier than Chancellorsville. Stout resistance all along the salient forced Hooker to recoil, and with two divisions wrecked by 9:00, he failed his stoppage check.

The same fate awaited Mansfield's 12, which moved out at 7:00--and got stopped at 9:30. Guns on the heights near the Dunker church, on the left of Hooker's main axis of attack, were harassing the movement of 1 Corps, so Mansfield was sent against them in force. His 1st Division got mauled and lost its commander; the 12 Corps snake-eyed its stoppage check after little longer than two hours. The other division was badly hit as well when the attack was stopped. Both 1st and 12 Corps had been hit too hard to be of any short-term use.

I had also sent orders at 6:30 to Sumner to cross the Antietam and attack the Sunken Road. The intended effect of this was to take the Confederates by storm all along their line, trading McClellan Points to get an overwhelming superiority in numbers with which to force the issue in the shortest possible time, and to prevent the mutual support of Rebel troops by pinning them down on their respective sectors. But 2 Corps took their time for breakfast and would not get moving until 9:00. Sedgwick's 2nd Division was sent forward first, and assaulted Harvey Hill's line with a series of Close Combats intended to break it and open the road for Richardson and French.

Losses were very high, but to no avail; Hill's brigades suffered severely, but held. At the end of the 10:00 turn, the US had little to show for their efforts. Confederate losses, though heavy, did not cripple the Rebels; reinforcements were sent in to help. Moreover, the good morale levels of Confederate troops all along the line enabled most of them to stand their ground even after they had been wrecked by losses. Overall, the Johnnies were spread thin, but still solidly anchored around their artillery, as the repulse of Mansfield had proved.

This ended the first phase of the battle: the initial orders had been terminated, and only 2 Corps was active, but unsupported, in front of the Sunken Road. An important point that the game had scored so far with me was to produce that series of disjointed attacks that actually characterized the battle as I had read about it, providing a feel for the desperate fury with which both sides fought. At the same time, it never required an decision taken for either side which was biased by knowledge of the other side's orders. Initiative was used decisively a couple of times to modify a pre-set plan of approach to oppose a flanking movement, but those orders were based on the knowledge of the positions of the other side's units only after they had been sighted.

All other orders I had issued for either side were based on the knowledge of how that side was doing, and what their own problems were. I didn't have to "suspend" my knowledge of the situation of the opposing army, so obvious was the work that either had in hand. However, the tactical solutions of the problems of the battlefield, such as which troops to send where and which to hold back, provided a lot of excitement and white-knuckle time, to say nothing of the usual delays in the acceptance of orders that are characteristic of the system.

Behind Schedule

It was late in the morning and the Army of Northern Virginia was still in its original positions; the Union was, so to speak, behind schedule. The only good news for them was that Jackson was down. New orders from McClellan would be needed to renew the attack from the same direction; I decided it would be best to send another fresh corps, Franklin's 6th, across the Antietam and resume what Hooker and Mansfield had left unfinished. It was best to let the latter two corps sit out the rest of the action--again, just like that very September--unless a real emergency camp up; their reactivation was not worth the cost in McClellan Points.

Franklin's orders were received at 11:00 and accepted at 12:00. I also sent forward Fitz-John Porter's 5 Corps for another assault at the Sunken Road. That turned out to be timely indeed, for in the same turn Sumner failed his stoppage check. Both decisions were costly in victory points, and strayed from the historical development of the battle; 6 Corps did not take part in the action, and 5 Corps was, after all, "the last reserve of the last army of the republic" and its activation appropriately costs 6 McClellan Points (more than any other corps).

However, I thought that the only chance the Union had to win a game so compromised was an all-out attack. Porter moved out at 12:30; meanwhile, the Confederates were readjusting their lines and bracing themselves for the attack that was obviously coming, with McLaws directed by Lee to the Dunker Church and Anderson backing up D. H. Hill. Stragglers had been recovered very effectively.

Franklin moved forward with Smith on the right, investing Hood and Evans in the West Woods, while Slocum's 2nd Division attacked the heights near the Dunker Church, where McLaws was positioned, supported by strong artillery. After repulsing the Federals two times, the Rebels' luck turned abruptly sour. Long-range artillery fire, though producing little real damage, routed Barksdale and Cobb and sent them reeling. This in turn left the whole Confederate position exposed; in less than two hours, the whole line would be in full flight.

Meanwhile, I had sent orders to Sumner to resume his attack against the Sunken Road in cooperation with Porter. This was the only corps reactivation I would try in the whole battle; 2 Corps was still full of fight. Here again, I gambled the corresponding McClellan Points against a possible--and decisive--smash through the salient, which could either open the way to the Confederate rear or flank the enemy positions around the Dunker Church if 6 Corps had not taken it yet.

Sumner's orders contained both options, so that no more would be needed. McClellan's aide reached Sumner at 12:30, and he moved forward one hour later.

Of the two corps in front of the Sunken Road, Porter's concentrated on the sharp angle the road formed on his left, while Sumner's again bore the brunt of the frontal thrust. Federal artillery pounded at the dug-in Confederates, but the cover their position afforded let them escape serious harm. By that time D. H. Hill's division, badly hit from Summer's previous attack, was being replaced by elements of Anderson's. Only Colquitt's brigade remained of the original occupants when the attack came, but with strong artillery support they put up a fight that re-earned Bloody Lane it sobriquet. Their good morale allowed them to resist well beyond their wrecked limit.

The Union all-out attacks were repulsed (and all three divisional COs wounded) when 2 Corps went out of the fight for good at 2:00 pm. Colquitt's men were slaughtered (91% of them were casualties at the end of the battle) but the line held.

It crumbled only after vicious fighting in Porter's sector. Two times the Federals took possession of the angle at heavy cost; two times they were forced back, with Wilcox and Featherstone plugging the gaps with piles of bodies, and finally giving way only when there were no troops left to man the line. At 2:00, while Sumner's attack was failing, the salient was finally taken, enfilading all Bloody Lane and compelling what Graybacks were still there alive to withdraw. Lee put up a token resistance, forming what was left of Hood's, Anderson's, and McLaws's troops into something of a stopgap. The tension grew as the Federals tried to reorganize and then pursue the enemy; but they were so badly used up themselves that both Franklin and Porter failed their stoppage checks one hour later. Along the Federal right and center, the battle was virtually over.

While the fight was reaching its climax there, on the left Burnside was ordered to cross the Antietam at the Lower Bridge; again, the cost in VPs for corps commitment was deemed reasonable because only D. R. Jones's division was standing in the way. But Burnside lived up (or down?) to his reputation and crossed only three hours later, against what was still very feeble resistance. "And then A. P. Hill came up," with effects on the game similar to those his arrival had on the real battle. His troops almost drove the Federals back into the creek; however, they managed to maintain a foothold on the west bank (and the 5 VPs that came with it) at the end of the battle. However, the Union had lost the gamble; they had too little to show for the blood they had shed.

By 5:00 pm the fighting had ceased on the battlefield--both armies were too exhausted to continue operations, and I decided to call the game two turns short of the end of the scenario. The Federals were in possession of all the main landmarks that originally stood in their front that morning: the Miller cornfield, the West Woods, the Dunker Church, the Sunken Road, and finally, Burnside's Bridge. But they were too exhausted and disorganized to attempt a further pursuit toward Sharpsburg. On the other hand, the Army of Northern Virginia was shot to pieces, with most of its brigades wrecked beyond repair, and could barely hope to cover a crossing of the Potomac with a lot of good luck. The body count is summed up below:

.	Army of the Potomac	Army of Northern Virginia
Casualties/Stragglers	180/114	152/71
Wrecked Brigades	5 (+14 for stragglers)	17 (+11 for stragglers)
Wrecked Divisions	0 (+1 for stragglers)	2 (+4 for stragglers)
Killed/Wounded COs	1/7	2/1
Orders Issued	6	16
McClellan Points	66	na
Victory Points	-9	na

As the table shows, the game exceeded even the real battle in casualties if we take one strength point as approximately 100 men. The Army of Northern Virginia was shattered beyond repair; the fact that the Confederates resisted so well for so long was due more to their resiliency (in the form of morale ratings and consistent straggler recovery) than to their residual strength. Many a unit was eliminated to a man, and a frantic activity was required of Lee and Longstreet to save the day: mostly they moved brigades around to stop the swarm of Bluecoats headed for them, and I usually issue far fewer orders in a typical CWB game of this length. However, they had held their ground for most of the day; a Federal effort far greater than the historical one--an effort thus punished by the system--was required to make the Confederates give way in the end.

This is the sense, I think, behind the "minor victory" awarded to the Rebels by the system: the Army of the Potomac had to get more out of McClellan than he historically gave; thus, the Federals won the battle strategically and tactically, but lost the game.

Conclusions

I had never before played a game on this battle, even if I had read about many. I was actually curious to find out how the notorious lack of aggressiveness of the Federal commander would be translated into a game system. I must say that this one works: one is either forced to think like McClellan or pay a steep fine. The game is gripping for the Union player, always in doubt whether to commit the whole weight of his army or save McClellan Points. I chose the former approach; results were not so good after all, and the victory conditions seem to indicate that even Little Mac, had he been as committed as I decided that he should have been, would have turned up with something better. As to the Confederates, they surpassed my best expectations.

Their brigades stood enemy fire even when already wrecked, often to the last man (D. H. Hill's division simply was not on the map at the end), and refused to give way. Their commanders wasted no time in issuing and implementing orders, to the point that even Stonewall Jackson was not decisively missed. The Rebel player is likely to grow some white hair, though, because his side has too few troops to do the work at hand.

That brings us to the main point of this article: I did grow a little gray hairs for each side (not that I care--I have a lot already!). It was interesting to switch sides continuously; while playing solitaire eliminated the fog of war, it allowed me to see the battle as it unfolded from both perspectives and opened my eyes to a different, and maybe broader, angle without tempting me into taking some actions instead of others just because I knew what the other side was up to.

Keeping track of losses for both sides did not hamper or alter my small-scale decisions either; that is, I did not attack one unit instead of another because I knew it had been badly hit already. I played without strength markers (I never do--I have no use for them) and simply set the non-phasing side's loss chart away until the resolution of combat. Besides, it does not take an omniscient player to assume that if a unit has been in the front line for five or six turns and had a couple 10s or worse rolled against it on the Fire Combat Table, it probably is badly mauled anyway--especially if it has a DG marker on top. Simply put, the game was so much fun to play that I never even thought about these technicalities.

Which does not mean, of course, that because I appreciate playing the CWB solitaire I can't enjoy a good head-to-head game. So if there's any of you who live close enough [Mantova, Italy], give me a call!