Here is an experience which I would like to relate that I think might be of interest to Civil War gamers. I will admit from the outset that it is somewhat heretical, but I offer it for what it might be worth!

I have created a small 15mm Union army for battling with a few friends. Earlier this year, my son, a freshman in high school, was studying the Civil War. Knowing my interest in the period, he asked if I would help him with a class presentation on the military aspects of the war. I agreed. We decided to create a wargame that would illustrate the basic features of the war.

I was unwilling to risk my carefully painted armies, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to expose eager recruits to the joys of wargaming. My son and I needed to make up two armies, quickly and cheaply; here is how we did it. I must admit that the final results far exceeded my expectations, and I learned a lot about wargaming in the process.

I decided to use ESCI plastic figures. They were relatively cheap, readily available and easy to work with. I purchased ten boxes of Federal and Confederate troops each. My son and I painted pieces of thin cardboard green and then cut them into one inch by three inch pieces with a paper cutter. I used a glue gun to glue four or five figures to the cardboard bases. I also glued a spent .22 rifle shell as a flag holder; this was an important part of the game, as you will see soon.

I did not want to invest much time in painting the soldiers, since I anticipated rougher than usual handling. But I did want the figures' detail to appear, so I painted them with a thin wash of black paint and turpentine. The wash highlighted the details when it dried, and it withstood rough handling.

Since plastic Civil War cavalry is unavailable, I pressed some ESCI British Napoleonic cavalry into service. I cut the tops of their helmets off at an angle to simulate a kepi and painted them blue and gray. From a foot away, the deception was not too noticeable, not even to a purist.

I scrounged enough Airfix Civil War artillery to arm both sides with enough guns. I had to improvise a set of rules. The rules had to be very simple, easily learned and played, fast moving and exciting, and yet demonstrate the basics of combat in the Civil war. Knowing that game play had to move quickly, I eliminated as many time wasters as possible.

Hex Grid

First, to avoid the time and arguments that usually accompany measuring battlefield distances, I decided that the game should be played on a hex grid, like the board in a boxed wargame. I made a large cardboard stencil with every third hex cut out and spray-painted a sheet dark green and brown.

Second, I designed the game so the playing pieces themselves would indicate the status of the troops they represented. At the beginning of the game, a small flag (USA and CSA flags on toothpicks purchased at a party supply house) was placed in the .22 shell flag holder. The loss of the flags in combat and their distribution by officers during rallying was an important part of the game. A flag added one point to the base combat value of the stand.

Originally, I typed up the rules and liberally illustrated them with photocopies of the drawings from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, along with notes about the weapons, tactics, and daily lives of the soldiers as a background for the rules. The rules were distributed to the students who wanted to participate in the game ahead of time. My son, who had play-tested the game with me, answered any questions.

The rules were cobbled together from On To Richmond and from the Milton Bradley fantasy game Battlemasters, with a few of my own innovations. I even wrote a simple BAS program for a laptop computer to simulate the dice rolls, although the kids preferred the excitement of rolling the dice anyway.

The game took two and a half hours to play, including set up and take down. There were three players to each side, with myself as referee, and the history teacher as a curious, but enthusiastic onlooker. The players were assigned roles of Lee, Jackson, and JEB Stuart on one side and Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan on the other. So we bent history for the sake of fun.

When the battlefield was set up, with the lines of gray and blue soldiers on the green field (the sheet on a gym floor), the flags jauntily flying from the toothpicks, amidst lichen trees and a river winding its way through a few cardboard hills, I stepped back, and was impressed! A pair of tape recorders simultaneously playing tapes of a brass band playing Civil War songs and battle sounds taped from the movie Waterloo created the appropriate ambience.

The game proceeded smoothly. My son had hand-picked players who were more or less cooperative with the spirit of the game. The rules worked well, with a little spur of the moment interpretation and faking on my part. It ended as a marginal victory for the South, who gained the field and lost just a few less casualties than their opponents. All the players enjoyed the game, were the best of sports, and asked for an immediate rematch. My son got an "A" for his project.

I experienced the thrill and excitement of my first wargaming days, and was pleased with the history lesson the game provided for my brave volunteers from the class of '95.