While On to Richmond is an excellent rules system for the Civil War, we found that when trying to simulate the larger battles (in our case, Antietam), the idea of morale passes was not exactly what we wanted. Regular soldiers on either side would have acted much the same, so the morale chart wasn't right for us.

What we finally came up with for simulating the more disjointed and piecemeal attacks of the Union at Antietam, was to go back to a basic card system (of drawing cards at random for movement.) For a corps that has good leadership and responds quickly to orders, just let the owning player move any division when a card for any division in that corps comes up. The best unit for the situation will move first and the corps commander will have much better control of his troops.

For the average corps, each card will (as described in the rules) correspond to a particular division. This is the same as we normally play, but it can be seen that the player with better command control will have a considerable advantage. To simulate below-average corps control, the system used is the same, except when a card for a division within the below-average corps comes up, his opponent decides which unit within that corps will move. All units will still eventually move in a corps, no matter what level of leadership they have. But as we all know, getting a particular unit to move first or last can be critical.

Another way to simulate disjointed Union attacks at any particular battle would also use cards. In this system, a joker would be inserted into the deck. Play proceeds normally until the joker is drawn, at which time, Union movement and fire are over for that turn. This duplicates the lack of reaction of Union units on many battlefields, and gives the Union general a better feel of the frustration that occurred when his orders to move were disobeyed, or not carried out until much later.

Of course, you could combine the two methods. In fact, by doing so is about the only way I can think of to simulate a battle like Chancellorsville!

Fair Game

In order to make a fair game of it, I would suggest that armies with superior command control have about 15% fewer points/units than normal. Armies with inferior (or average) command control would have 5% more points/units. And finally, armies with poorly controlled units (which also have the joker block) would have 40% more points/units. We've play-tested both ideas, and done away with the morale passes of figure generals, and have found that these ideas not only speeded up our games, but also gave better simulation.