Part 1 (OP5)

I decided to use hidden movement up past the McAfee House as before, but then I would turn due west along the road to A30.14 and attack the Reserve Corps' north flank. In order to prevent further Union Cavalry interference, I sent Forrest's Cavalry up to screen the roads I wanted to use.

I issued Longstreet his instructions at about 1:00 a.m.. They were immediately accepted. At 2:00 a.m., the Left Wing started amassing movement points, and the plan was set in motion.

In war, timing is everything. Naturally, I discovered that I can't count. I started amassing hidden movement points too soon and failed to make my 4:00 a.m. die roll. This wouldn't have been a problem except that Longstreet's orders called for a 4:30 a.m. attack. In other words, my own orders prohibited me from actually attacking on the turn that my move was triggered. The end result? I moved everyone up to two hex distance and waited for daylight. Instead of the shattering surprise I anticipated, Sticky got to see what was coming and turned to meet me. Oops.

Still, it was a surprise for him. Longstreet's Wing massed superior force against the attenuated and battered line of Granger's Federals, promising me a significant tactical success. Longstreet went in right on time at 4:30. The Union Reserve corps began to lose heavily right away, as did my Rebs. I pounded him severely and had broken two of Granger's three divisions in two turns (counting the optional units). My attacks began to overlap some of the Union 14th Corps units.

Combs left Granger out to dry while he built up a new line by refusing the l4th Corps to a position around the McDonald House. At one point no less than four Union brigades were routing, and both losses & stragglers skyrocketed in the exposed Union Reserve Corps. Amazingly, Granger never quit. By 6:00 a.m., with 4 of his 7 units eliminated, Granger was still hanging on and had to be ordered back by Rosecrans himself. Just before Granger accepted Rosecrans' order, the Union Reserve Corps finally failed their die roll and promptly retreated. Now the job fell to Thomas' broad shoulders.

Unfortunately for Sticky, Thomas was not made of similar oak, but something more akin to balsa. At 6:30, Thomas broke, and Longstreet finally gained the Lafayette Road. In all fairness, the fighting was fierce. Longstreet had one Attack Stoppage (despite having only one wrecked division) but resumed that same turn with initiative.

Other actions raged while the titans collided in the north. Down around the Brotherton House, I was doing my best to lend luster to the Bragg name. I initially ordered Polk to attack at 4:00 a.m., knowing a several turn delay would ensue. All proceeded according to plan then I chickened out. Polk would issue orders to his two main subordinates (Buckner and Walker) separately, generating piecemeal attacks. Lacking in moral courage, I promptly scurried back and issued halt orders at 6:oo a.m.

Confirming all my worst fears, Walker's CSA Reserve Corps went in to a bloody repulse at 6:30. No less than six of his units retreated in disorganization or worse yet, routs. Almost no Yankees fell to Rebel fire. Thank God, I thought, that I issued stop orders. Buckner went in next. Now it was the Union turn to fold, and I was cursing those halt orders, bemoaning my stupidity.

I quickly hurried back and re-issued the attack orders. (No wonder Bragg's subordinates hated him. He couldn't make up his mind. Or do I resemble that remark?) The net effect was frustration. My men stopped, then they started again. Now Walker crushed a Union flank, and success glittered on both ends of the tine. This time, a fluke Attack Stoppage dashed my hopes. (I had to beat a '3' and failed. Karma for my lame behavior so far, I guess.) By 8:00a.m., the Union troops were withdrawing to stronger positions (necessitated by the collapse of Thomas, described earlier) and Polk's men simply watched them go.

Sticky's usual reaction to trouble on one front is to attack on another. Chickamauga proved to be no exception. He launched two efforts to distract my forces. The first offensive took the form of a cavalry raid on Longstreet's rear area around the McAfee House. Forrest's Cav, now under Pegram, was supposed to be watching for this move but failed. (It's always better to pin blame on your subordinates especially if you're playing Bragg.) Three brigades of Union cavalry quickly charged my limbered cannon and trashed a five point unit. I desperately scraped together a motley collection of defenders.

The cavalry raid ended ingloriously. Most of his men were D morale units and kept rolling "Disorganized" morale results. I unlimbered some other guns and promptly routed one Federal unit. Forrest's men galloped up for a belated rescue. Sticky's commandos troubled me no more. His I/Cav division was soon wrecked and retreated north.

The second offensive was potentially more serious. In the south, he still had three divisions (3/20, at Lee and Gordon's, and 2/21 & 3/21 along the Lafayette Road south of the Vinyard House) and elected to use them.

Soon after dawn, I realized that all of Cheatham's troops were buried in the woods, facing due west around the Hall house. No one was positioned to either block or observe the road leading south to Dalton Ford, which provided his division (3/20) at Lee and Gordon's direct access to Cheatham's flank. At 6:00 a.m., I moved one brigade south to cover the road and observe the high ground south of the Creek. This small adjustment revealed my peril. Sticky was conducting a hidden movement himself. He triggered it at 6:30 once he realized that my observing unit could now see his approach to Dalton's Ford.

Although I saw the trap closing and forestalled complete surprise, I still had troubles. Cheatham's five small brigades faced the nine larger Federal units converging on me from two directions. Foolishly, I complicated matters by trying to hold a forward line covering both of the intersections at A25.13 and A21.15. Sticky taught me the folly of overextension. First, 3/20 closed up from the ford and routed my right-flank unit in close-combat. During the ensuing fire combat, he flanked my other brigade which was stacked with cannon. The rest of 3/20 edged through the woods on my cast flank and cut my line of retreat. Meanwhile, over around the Hall house, two more Yankee divisions were driving my three Rebel units back. At least I wasn't getting flanked there, too.

By 7:30a.m., I gave up, simply choosing to try to save Cheatham's command. I still had a little room to fall back before violating my Divisional Goal (which would necessitate an ECR). So, I tried to stabilize a defense around A25.18, another convenient road junction. After managing to fall back to the designated point, my flank was again threatened by Sheridan's 3/20. I declared an ECR and fell back more than a mile to A31.24, north of the Alexander House. Cheatham (and 1) had been soundly whipped.

Now Sticky had a choice. Crittenden, commander of this flank sideshow, could be sent further into my rear to take the road junction to which Cheatham's Rebs had fallen back. Or, he could return to the Lafayette Road and attack north into Walker's CSA Reserve Corps flank. The first move against Cheatham, was tempting because it would put three relatively unscathed Federal Divisions directly in the rear of Polk's wing. However, he had to drive Cheatham away first which would take time despite that unit's weakened condition. Moving due north to hit Walker directly was out, since a lack of roads through the woods in this spot would make any move slow.

Time: The Critical Factor

Time was a critical factor because, at 9:00 a.m., Walker accepted another attack order from Polk and hit the 20th Corps with a powerful blow. The Union Corps faded its defensive die roll. This forced an ECR. I was elated and passed my 9:30 Attack Stoppage roll. Buckner's men, languishing under a DI on their own attack orders, were about to go in as well. When Buckner's Corps started, I could shatter his whole center.

Sticky's choice was made. Crittenden could not afford to take the long road into my rear. Rosecrans sent an order to him demanding a return to the Lafayette Road and an attack on the Rebel flank. The Federal 14th, 20th, and Reserve Corps finally came to rest on Snodgrass Hill. Weak in infantry, Combs dragged every cannon he could find to that eminence and dared me to come on. The 14th Corps held the Hill itself, while Reserve Corps hid in the woods west of it, and prevented Rebel infiltration from the north. McCook's 20th formed on the high ground around A9.25.

The loss of about 8,000 men on each side between 5:00 and 8:00 a.m. is an indicator of the severity of the struggle. However, the Federals had suffered many more stragglers due to repeated defensive orders failures and were weaker in combat strength. Among the three corps clustered around Snodgrass, for instance, most units were at "B" or "C" strength.

I issued new orders for Longstreet to take Snodgrass, and I set methodically to work. I dragged up plenty of my own cannons, since I finally had clearfields of fire. While I set the big guns to work shelling Federal cannon on the heights, I massed all of the Left Wing in the woods east of and to the north of Snodgrass. I was getting ready for a big charge. All of my 21 Left wing brigades were to go in at once.

Further south, I issued Polk more instructions to attack, since the retreat of the 20th Corps allowed the Rebs to fulfill their old orders. Walker and Buckner, a total of 18 more brigades, were to crush what was left of the 20th Corps and drive northwest to capture the exit hexes at J and K.

Combs was now counting on Crittenden to save the day. At 9:30 a.m., his plans hit a snag---Crittenden's order from arrived distorted. He sent back for clarification, and Sticky howled in dismay. Rosecrans set off to repeat the order in person, probably with some strong language about Crittenden's parentage.

At 10:30, I was finally ready on Longstreet's front. I sent forward the command for a frontal assault. Law's Division led the way and attacked from the north. On the first turn, I failed to gain any hexes of the hill. But, his lines were fragile, and I was confident of success.

Disaster struck the Yankees at 11:00 a.m.. Thomas needed a 7 or better to pass his defensive failure check. He failed with a six. Initiative failed to restore the situation, and Sticky's last line collapsed. Thomas' men fled the hill in disorder, losing yet more stragglers. We decided it was all over. We ended the game at this point because the only thing Combs could do was try to save the army and retreat off the map.

We counted up victory Points and found that I had a minor victory. In all honesty, if we had played it out, I would have gotten at least a major victory. The Rebs amassed a lot of victory points, but my use of all the optional troops had put me at a VP deficit starting out.

The final losses were as follows:

Union

Wilder (7), 1/14 (16), 2/14 (12), 3/14 (29) permanently wrecked, 4/14 (16), 1/ 20 (11), 2/20 (4), 3/20 (10), 1/21 (21) permanently wrecked, 2/21 (7), 3/21 (3), 1/Res (32) permanently wrecked, 2/Res (26) permanently wrecked, 3/3/Res (4), I/Cav (8)

CSA

C/P (15), H/P (9) (attached to Longstreet), C/11 (13), Br/H (9), W/Res (7), L/ Res (12), S/B (11), P/B (11), JPD/1 (15), M/1 (9), H/1 (22), A/FCav (8), P/ FCav (9), LO/- (7), St/- (10)

Union Loss--20,600
Rebel Loss-16,700

There were 16,000 Union stragglers. Counting dead and straggler losses the Union had a total of 10 wrecked divisions. The South had only 7,300 stragglers in addition to dead. The disparity in straggler numbers is explained mostly by the impact of all those ECR's triggered by Union orders failures. Only two Rebel divisions were wrecked at the end of the game, and those only by stragglers.

Sticky played a fairly tight game. I thought his largest mistakes were these: leaving the Union Reserve Corps in the front line after the first day and trying to hold too long a line in the north, where Union Reserve and 14th Corps bulged eastward from the Lafayette Road for about a mile and a half (15 hexes). He needed to shorten his line, move in fresh troops, and recover the poor Reserve Corps. When Longstreet finally attacked, the Yanks still had almost 1,000 stragglers still out in that command. Also, he didn't get enough use out of Crittenden. I think in this case he awaited developments, and when he did attack, his other forces to the north negated any advantage by their own collapse. Still, he did clean C/P's clock in short order. Only the need to reverse his steps and save the Union center prevented Crittenden from completely crushing my division.

As for me, I was all over the place. In the north, with Longstreet, I had a plan, stuck to it, and executed it rather well. Yet, the taint of Bragg surrounded me. I really screwed up with Polk, especially since I designed the damn thing and knew the pitfalls going in. Between 4:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. on 20 Sep, I issued no less than five orders to Polk. First I attacked, then chickened out an cancelled on the next turn. When I realized such vacillation was dumb, I ordered Polk in again. After a disastrous first turn of attack (from the first order, because of the delays involved in Polk's wing) I chickened out again and cancelled the second attack. Then order #2 (to stop) kicked in, just as I had some success. Finally, I issued my fifth order, again to attack. I watched the first cancellation stop my initial attack, and a Corps Attack Stoppage cancel my second effort (which was going to quit anyway, since I'd ordered a halt again with order #4).

Finally, just as #5 started to get accepted, the game ended. Because of my stupidity, Polk's 18 attacking brigades only suffered 16 losses between them on the entire second day, revealing how little fighting they actually did. On the whole, my performance with Polk rose to truly Bragg-esque heights. By the way, Bragg himself seemed eminently satisfied with Polk and the whole arrangement, for he never made his bypass roll to start issuing orders directly to Buckner and Walker.