Fred Haub set up a "double blind" American Civil War game between General Beauregard Hubig of the Confederacy and General W. Simon, the Lion of the North. We two participants each had, displayed before us, our own complete map of the terrain, showing our own troops, plus whatever enemy units Umpire Haub deemed were visible. As the sketch shows, the two halves of the table were separated by a screen. Each of our areas thus occupied one half the ping-pong table, approximately 5x5 feet, nicely suited to our 15mm armies. I couldn't see General Hubig, nor he, me.... we both, however, heard an assortment of moans and groans and curses from the other side of the screen as enemy units appeared and then faded from view. The map is shown. My orders, from General Meade himself, read: "Seize and occupy South Mountain and Plimple House. Reinforcements approaching."  I had 5 brigades and 2 batteries to accomplish my task. I assume the Confederates had about the same... because of the restricted fields of view, I never determined General Hubig's full order of battle. Three of my brigades - 2 regiments each - were ordered to advance straight to South Mountain, while the remaining 2 brigades made for Plimple House. My artillery, both batteries, was ordered to advance and set up near Plimple House to support the attack. The rules used were those described in the Manassas battle, also in this issue... 5-stand regiments and 2-gun batteries, while the effect of impact from fire and melee show up in the target's morale status rather than in direct casualty counts. About two turns into the game, the northern, i.e., forward, slopes of South Mountain were suddenly flooded with Rebel troops as General Hubig's forces became visible. We were moving about 10 inches (approximately 300 yards) per movement phase, and my total advance, from North Ridge to South Mountain, was in the order of 36 inches. The bulk of my left flank force, the one advancing through East Woods, was in column, and, I assumed, completely unknown and invisible to Hubig... although I have learned from past battles run by Umpire Haub that one can never really trust the fellow to do the obvious. I had placed one brigade in the open, fairly exposed and in the middle of the field, hoping that the good General Hubig would concentrate on it, forgetting that his right flank, covered by the East Woods, was vulnerable to an attack through the undergrowth. When I finally deployed in line in the woods and one regiment showed itself, I heard: "Aha! So that's where you are!", indicating that my flanking force had indeed made it through the woods undetected. Unfortunately, the attack through the woods fizzled out due to the rough terrain encountered. The rules permit units in column formation to pass, unhindered, through any type of rough terrain. If not in column, however, units have a 70% chance of moving without a penalty. The penalty is a complete stoppage for that movement phase... thus rough terrain will slow troops down, on the average, about one third of the time. Although my regiments successfully deployed in the woods and moved forward with no hitches, when they came to the slopes of South Mountain, they balked - not once, but several times! - and my advance stopped and all I could do was firefight with the Rebels on the slopes above me.  I wasn't doing too well on my other flank, either, where the attack on Plimple House was going on. Here, the Confederates, by concentrating artillery and musket fire, had managed to amass 12 or so impacts on one of my regiments. Each time a regiment is hit by fire, it receives a "negative" in its morale test; each impact counts as -5 off the unit's Morale Level during the test. If one can concentrate enough fire to impact a unit 10 times within the span of one turn , that unit is deemed destroyed due to the weight of fire.., we don't even test its morale... it's simply taken off the field for the rest of the battle. Plimple House didn't look too good. About this time, therefore, I decided to employ a little "psy war", and I sent General Hubig the following message, hoping he would see reason: To my Worthy Opponent: R E Lee has, long ago, expressed doubts concerning your martial capabilities. May I suggest that you take your troops back to Richmond, before you lose your forces, your pride, your reputation, and your pension. The Lion of the North The unreasonable fellow's reply was an insulting, "Nuts!" Obviously, he must be taught a lesson. The need to thrash him was further emphasized when I sent another message containing the following appeal to reason: As a gentleman, I must offer you one more chance to surrender with honor. I have no wish to make a laughing stock of you nor of the Rebel army. His reply stated: Bite your tail, you mangy Lion...! The man was insufferable, and as my troops advanced on his, and impacted upon them, it was with great joy that I heard, from the other side of the screen: 'A-a-a-rgh!!' One of his regiments had failed a morale test and Umpire Haub removed it from the field. A moment later: "A-a-a-rgh!!" and another Rebel unit disappeared. Now we're getting somewhere, thought I.  Several additional turns into the battle, however, I thought I was in trouble. All my troops had advanced forward to the South Mountain line, I had no reserves left, just about all were committed, and suddenly, behind me, on North Ridge, there appeared a Confederate brigade! I had heard whispers, behind the screen, of "Mumble, mumble, cavalry", and "Mumble, mumble, Jackson's troops", and so on. Evidently, this is what the secret goings-on were all about. But not to worry. My two batteries located near Plimple House turned their guns to the north, and BLAM!, BLAM!, BLAM!...I made sure there were lots of impacts and negative modifiers on that @#$%&* brigade that dared to attack my rear. And sho' nuff!... the very next turn, I saw Umpire Haub remove the troops from view as General Hubig drew them back behind North Ridge and out of the line of fire. I now turned my attention to the line at South Mountain, and after one or two melees, saw my boys breakthrough the Rebel forces in the middle of the field. Unfortunately, although things looked good in the middle, the flanks were somewhat less than optimal, as Hubig's men held true on both the left and the right. Neither of us had any reserves; all troops on both sides had been thrown into the battle, and we wisely decided to break off the action, lest we both grind away to the last man. I hinted to Umpire Haub that he could declare the Lion as the winner, thereby earning a free subscription to the REVIEW... I saw greed, lust, and avarice writ upon his countenance, but the lad fought them all, and the light of Goodness shone forth once again. 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