INTRODUCTION Tom Elsworth came over from Oxford in September for a two week stay, and during his visit to the Simon abode, he took a day off to visit the Manassas battlefield, escorted by Jim Butters. I stayed home, nursing a sick air conditioner. I did promise the tourists, however, that, on their return, I would have set up for them, on my Geo-Hex laden ping pong table, a replay of First Manassas, culled from the volumes of BATTLES AND LEADERS OF THE CIVIL WAR (BLCV). And so, while they were gone, I completed my research, modeled the terrain, and at the end of the day as they came in the door, proudly showed them my set-up. The map is shown in Figure 1, taken from page 180 of Volume 1 of BLCV. Instead of wild applause, boundless foot-stomping, and deafening cheers, I got... BOO's and CATCALLS:: "What is this mythical battlefield you've created?" "Your map is totally incorrect!" "Whom are you fooling?"... and other such cries. In Figure 1, the original battle plans are shown. The Union commander, McDowell, coming from the northeast, chose to make two diversionary attacks across Bull Run at (1) and (2) while sending the bulk of his forces around to the west to attack the Confederates left flank at (3). At first, this succeeded, but Stonewall Jackson's intervention at (4) saved the day, rallied the Southerners, and sent the Federals fleeing.  After several minutes of ardent discussion concerning whose mind it was that had failed, the story came out. Fresh from the Manassas site itself, both Tom and Jim stated that the map which I had duplicated didn't really tell the tale; it depicted the initial positions of the forces, but failed to show where they eventually ended up. According to both Tom and Jim, McDowell, the Union commander, had delegated only two brigades for his diversionary attack across Bull Run from the north. The rest of his army circled counterclockwise and the battle itself was eventually fought somewhere to the west of Sudley Church. In other words, regardless of what the map said, I hadn't set up the Manassas battle at all, but an adjacent site which saw very little of the true action. Once we had that all figured out, the idea was born: why not fight Manassas-As It Should have Been? Our thought was that we could do what McDowell should have done: assigned a much larger diversionary force to attack across Bull Run, thus keeping the Confederates fully occupied, and preventing them from moving just about all their troops offboard to the west to meet the flanking Union army. If McDowell had done things properly, therefore, the battle of Manassas would indeed have been fought on the terrain I had set up. RUDIMENTS OF THE RULES A fairly new set of rules, generated in honor of the 15mm ACW figures I acquired at HISTORICON in July. Five stands per regiment, two or three regiments per brigade, and the Brigade Commander plays an important role in upgrading the morale of his troops. Brigadiers are rated according to their Competence Level: Dice Competence Level (CL) 01 to 33 50 32 to 66 40 67 to 100 30 The rules are very much "leader oriented", and lean heavily on the command structure. A rundown of the Brigadier's functions: a. First, he can add up to 20 percentage points to the morale level of any regiment in his command. b. He is at risk, however, for double the number of points he contributes, i.e., if he assists with 15 points, the chance that he is hit is 30%. c. If he is hit, dice are thrown: 100 -------------------------------- . No effect Risk Percentage --------------------------- . Reduce one Competence Level 1/2 Risk Percentage --------------------------- . Reduce two Competence Levels 01 --------------------------------------------  d. The Brigadier is killed if his Competence Level goes down to zero. On the next turn, a replacement Brigadier arrives at the side of the Division Commander and rides out to his brigade. The Competence Level of the new Brigadier is diced for just as was that of the original Brigadier. e. Until the new commander arrives, regiments in his brigade may fire defensively, but have only 50% chance to perform any other action. f. Brigadiers can rally stands (companies) that have become inactive as the result of impact from fire or melee. g. Brigadiers can rally entire regiments within their command that have become inactive as the result of impact from fire or melee. The percentage chance to rally a regiment is the Competence Level, which ranges from 50 down to 30%. h. If the Division Commander is killed (due to a Risk Percentage), one of the existing Brigadiers is named as a replacement. Immediately this is done, the new Division Commander's former brigade is without a leader and must await the appearance of a new Brigadier. Musket fire reaches out to 10 inches, which, at 33 yards to the inch, gives an effective range of 330 yards. Smoothbores are restricted in range to 20 inches, or 660 yards, to prevent them from dominating the battlefield. These numbers stem from the 5 inch frontage of the 5-stand regiment, which is deemed to contain 500 men. THE BATTLE Since there were only three of us involved, we' scaled the scope of the battle down to a brigade action rather than keep it up at the division level. Tom Elsworth, as Confederate commander, couldn't shift his troops as easily as his predecessor had done to ward off the Union attack on his left flank. General Jim Butters' Union flanking force appeared near Sudley Church and commenced its march to Chinn House. General Jim was blessed throughout the battle with a continuing series of extremely low dice rolls... companies did not flee, regiments did not rout, brigades pushed on regardless of losses... it was agreed by all that if General Jim had been present in 1861, the entire war could have been dispensed with, and the army assigned to truly important tasks, such as beating on the Indian tribes.  Elsworth not only had to face General Jim to his left, but his nemesis of yore to the north.., that great Union commander, the Lion of Ostlandt. The Lion continually bashed and smashed and flailed away at the Confederates at the various fords across Bull Run. He didn't make too much progress, but he did achieve what he had set out to accomplish... keeping Elsworth sufficiently uneasy about the northern threat.., uneasy enough so that the Confederate commander couldn't divert a large number of his troops to defend against General Jim's force. Elsworth did manage to get Jackson's and Early's units to his left flank, and they performed well considering the heavy and continuous fire issuing from General Jim's advancing Federal troops. Each regiment's Morale Level (ML) was calculated to be: ML = 60 + (5 x No of stands) A fresh 5-stand regiment, therefore, commenced at an ML percentage of 60+(5x5), or 85%. Each impact from fire reduced the ML by 5%, where the impact due to an infantry regiment firing was defined as: Impact Points (IP) = 2 x (No of stands firing) x (No of volleys) In the sequence, a side was given a series of 2-action phases, hence the maximum number of volleys permitted at any one time was 2 and the maximum IP total per regiment was 2x5x2, or 20. Every 10 IP registered one impact. The Impact Points were halved if the target was under cover. Having been impacted upon, a regiment checked its morale, and during the test, three results were possible, illustrated by the following diagram in which a unit, having been hit 3 times, has its Morale Level temporarily reduced to 85-15, or 70%: Dice Throw 100 -------------------------------- . Odd: Fall back Even: Rout, remove from field 70 --------------------------- . No effect 01 -------------------------------------------- Note that one of the possible results of a regiment's morale failure is to rout, and be whisked off the board. I have mentioned in other REVIEW articles that I'm unhappy with the disposition of routing units defined in most rules sets. I don't really know what to do with routing units, and I suspect other rules authors have the same problem... where do the units go? ... how fast? ... can they interpenetrate their own troops?... if so, what is the effect? ... can they defend themselves? .., when do they stop running? .., when should they rally? ... and so on.  My solution: if the unit is truly ineffective, disorganized, demoralized, impotent, whatever.., then let's temporarily get rid of it completely instead of having it clutter up the table. Having a unit momentarily vanish is not as bad as it seems. The sequence has a rally phase in it during which the Brigadier, if he's up to snuff, can rally the regiment and bring it under his control again. That's where the Brigadier's Competence Level (CL) of either 50, 40, or 30% comes in... the CL represents the percentage chance of the Brigadier rallying his men... if he does so, they reappear at his side, nontheworse for wear. Under Union fire from both his front and his flank, General Elsworth's Confederates took heavy losses. The Union was able to concentrate its fire, amassing heaps of Impact Points against the rebels. Several times - due to high dice throws - Confederate regiments routed and disappeared from view, leaving gaps in the lines. In two separate instances, concentrated fire resulted in a unit having 10 simultaneous impacts placed on it. Our thought was that if one could bring such a weight of firepower to bear on a given target, that target would be permanently incapacitated... it was destroyed and we removed it from the field for the remainder of the battle. This happened to one bold regiment of the Lion's that succeeded in forcing its way across one of the Bull Run fords. The unfortunate unit didn't have time to consolidate its position before, it seemed, every gun in the Confederate army was trained on it. BLAMMO! No more regiment. Another interesting rule concerned a brigade level, or "wave attack", wherein the regiments in a brigade would form in lines, one behind the other, and charge. Tom and I had seen Paddy Griffith's description of this in his softcover Civil War manual. According to the book, the "wave attack" took place thusly: a. Two regiments of a brigade would form up and charge home. b. The first regiment would make contact and melee. c. If the first regiment succeeded, the second regiment, essentially held in reserve 'till now, would advance through the first and proceed in a "breakthrough" to attack other units. If this was good enough for Dr. Griffith, it was good enough for us. In fact, we went one step farther, for if some is good, then obviously more is better.., we implemented the procedure as follows: a. Two regiments line up and charge. b. We count Melee Points of both regiments to see who wins the initial encounter. c. If the attacker wins, the second regiment must advance (no option here) to contact, up to 10 inches, in a breakthrough.  Here, we've given the benefit of massing the weight of two full regiments to the attacker. The penalty, however, is a mandatory breakthrough by the second regiment, now somewhat weakened because of losses sustained during the initial encounter. The effect is to provide a pattern of attack and counter-attack, as one side momentarily breaks through with a unit not in tip-top shape which is then, perhaps, repulsed by the defender. This happened at the defense of Chinn House. Elsworth's troops massed in several ranks to repulse a Yankee attack, and were successful... and the second rank troops surged forward in uncontrolled fashion, were beaten, tested morale, failed, were removed from the field, and Chinn House was left with too few defenders. Another question which the rules address concerns the determination of just which elements of the attacking and defending forces are engaged in melee.., all units in contact? .., only those stands in contact?... all stands within a certain radius? .., and so on. In a multiple melee, one regiment is designated the Lead Regiment. Adjacent regiments are then looked at from the point of view of their relative position to the Lead Regiment. These auxiliary units are then given modifiers as follows: Cavalry in a second line +15 Second wave in an infantry attack +15 Third wave in an infantry attack -15 Second regiment in line alongside the Lead Regiment -15 Any other configuration -30 All stands of the Lead Regiment are engaged. The above modifiers are then applied to a dice throw to determine how many stands of each of the supporting regiments are involved in the melee calculations: No Of Stands Engaged Modified Dice Throw Nine 01 to 33 Half (round down) 34 to 66 All 66 and up Thus one can "gang up" on the opponent, yet find that the mass of accumulated troops doesn't really want to participate in the combat. All that one is assured of is that the Lead Regiment will be in there all of the time. But all these clever ploys aside, the battle went in fine fashion.., a glorious victory for the Union: Manassas- As It Should Have Been. Back to PW Review November 1987 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1987 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com