You gaze up the long slope at the imposing heights to your front. You wonder how any man could survive the march across that deadly space. You are about to lead your company into a maelstrom of lead and iron to almost certain death! The field in front of you appears alive with the writhing and cries of the wounded. You know from the sight of this carnage that you can never hope to dislodge the hardened veterans crouched behind the stone wall and yet you know you must try to do so. The Colonel shouts:" Charge Bayonets! Forward March!" The roar of the guns begins to rise to a crescendo as you move ever forward towards your unknown fate.
FREDRICKSBURG: December 13, 1862
Since September of 1998 I have been working diligently to create a sculpted terrain board and a playable scenario built around the Battle of Fredricksburg. I believe what I have produced does just that. I will not enter into great detail on the battle itself. People in our hobby usually know this battle in great detail. Fredricksburg has been studied, written of and depicted in artwork to the point of exhaustion. Most of the writing and art is focused on the futile attacks on Marye’s Heights. This is ironic, as this portion of the battle was never even in question. The real fight took place elsewhere on the battlefield.
The most competitive stage of the battle occurred well before the infamous assault on Mayre’s heights. The attack of George Meade’s third division of the old 1st Corps came quite close to breaking the Confederate right, thereby rolling up the entire flank of their army. A timely counter-attack by the Confederates on Prospect Hill brought this energetic yet unsupported assault to an end.
The carnage on Mayre’s Heights was essentially a sideshow. The repeated assaults on the nearly impregnable position behind the famous stone wall never came close to breaking through. Ambrose E. Burnside, as an Army commander was admittedly inadequate. As ridiculous as it seems, he nearly ordered yet another assault on this position late in the afternoon of the 13th, which he proposed to lead personally. Franklin, Hooker and a few other staff officers managed to talk him out of the attack. This finally brought the bloody fray to a close. Interestingly, five months later John Sedgewick’s attack on the thin lines of McLaw's troops during the Battle of Chancellorsville actually took the heights. Unfortunately for the Union, it was the only successful action of that fight. The horrendous casualties on the Heights in back of Fredricksburg lived on in the memories of participants from both sides.
On July 3rd, 1863, James Longstreet sent nearly 15,000 Confederates charging into a similar position held by Union troops in a place we all know. After the assault was repulsed men all along the federal lines could be heard chanting "Fredricksburg! Fredricksburg!" in a victorious overture. Apparently, revenge tasted sweet to the men in blue.
SCENARIO INFORMATION
I have attached the documentation associated with this scenario. Although I have designed this for play with Rich Hasenhauer’s game Fire & Fury, any brigade level game could be used. I know of two others that would be a good fit. Volley & Bayonet and On to Richmond both utilize the brigade as the smallest unit. One could adapt the game to either system. Another system came out recently called A Nation on Trial. They have already written a Fredricksburg scenario and included it in their scenario book titled Blow Bugles Blow. You may also have seen it in the most recent edition of Ivor Janci’s magazine Zouave.
For the Fredricksburg scenario I have written some special rules and included them with the enclosed data. I have modified some tables included in an article by Bill Haggart titled Grand Gestures, Acts of Bravery and Foolhardy Attempts. He credits an old game by Yaquinto Press entitled Battles and Leaders. There are 99 results on this chart, too many for my simple taste. Therefore, I shortened it to 20. After all, how many ways can a General kick the proverbial bucket? I also have modified the artillery charts to include several gun types. I wanted to represent in some fashion the higher caliber guns on Stafford Heights. Also, at this point in the war the Confederates still had significant numbers of six pound guns. These have a distinct disadvantage in artillery duels with Napoleons and rifled guns on the Federal side. Lee mentioned this problem in a letter to his ordinance chief in Richmond just after Antietam/Sharpsburg.
He referred to the 3 inch ordinance rifle and the Napoleon as by far the most "serviceable" guns in the Confederate inventory. By Gettysburg there were only two batteries of six pound guns left in the Army of Northern Virginia. In December of 1862 however, the replacement process was not even close to complete. Therefore, the difference should be reflected in the Cannonade charts.
THE TERRAIN BOARDS
This portion of the development process is always the most challenging. I have used two inch thick foam in the past and this has always generated a huge mess. The cutting process was long and tedious at best, exhausting and fruitless at worst. The foam was everywhere when I was finished. I am convinced this contributed to my divorce from my first wife. It is my guess (and hope if the truth be known) that she is still removing foam particles from here hair and clothing at this very moment. I have arrived at solution at this point and you all can determine if it was too late or right on time after you see my smiling face at Recon.
There are now many excellent hot wire foam cutters available. I purchased two of these devices. One is called the Hot Wire Foam Factory. I bought this over the web from a company called Micro Mark. They have lots of wonderful tools and toys for us gamers. I highly recommend ordering a catalogue from this company. You may find them on the web at (http://www.micromark.com). If you are still in the 19th century technologically as well as spiritually, you may call them at 800-225-1066. This foam cutter is a little pricey at $169.00. It comes with a scroll table, a scribing tool and a wire cutting hand tool. It has a transformer to control the heat intensity. I used these tools to make all the major cuts on the board.
The second foam cutter I purchased was a device called Tippi for about $50.00 dollars. It is much smaller and has several heavy wire tips in various shapes. The wire is about the thickness of a paper clip (for you fellow southerners this is AKA a Gem Clip). This tools makes precision cuts needed for streams and roads. It works very well. The device was displayed at the Fall In convention last November. I bought it on line from a company called Avalon. Again, I highly recommend this tool. It saved me months of work and tons of debris.
After I finished cutting I covered the whole board with plaster cloth. You can purchase this at the local railroad hobby store. I painted the whole board in (previously cut in2 feet by 4 feet sections) and flocked with a combination of foam and static grass. The river was done with brown and blue paint mixed. It was on thin ¼" foam. The whole river was coated with a gloss media purchased from a local craft store. Everyone has their own favorite method of making water and this is mine.
Details and buildings were placed on the board after all had dried. This process took about a month to complete in my spare moments on the weekends. The details are the most important part. Plenty of fields and fences should be placed. You can make your own fences or buy them commercially. The best (hands down) are from Musket Miniatures. They are criminally easy to paint. Simply spray black primer on them and then dry brush with an off white and gray mixture. Try Musket Miniatures "Old Thatch" for this purpose.
The final results of these exercises are quite visually pleasing. I game in 10mm. There are more and more 10mm gaming accessories every day. However, 10mm is N-Gauge at the model railroad store. You have a vast supply of scenery available from this source. I will be happy to provide my resources if you wish to ask at the convention.
I have utilized the 1/200 scale for this game and 1 to 8 for the gun stands. This should help in the conversion process to other systems. You have my permission to copy verbatim any part of this information. Just be sure to thank me if it works. You can also forget me if it doesn’t work.
The only piece I have excluded is my "random events" chart. These events are intended to be a nasty surprise to the unfortunate victim that rolls a "10" on a separate "Random Events" table. For obvious reasons this is not included. Upon completion of the game at Recon in April and Historicon in July I will be willing to reveal these charts. Until then, you will have to guess.
I would like to hear from you if you use this scenario with any degree of success. I hope you enjoy the game. Be sure to sign up for the game at Recon or Historicon. My E-Mail address is below. To all of those that do play I send a Rebel Yell and a Yankee Huzzah!
Bill Moreno
ACWBill@aol.com
Bryan : Here is a short bio on me if needed.
I am 38 years old and have been a member of HGMS East since 1993. . I moved from the Washington DC area to South Florida in July of 1998. I am a lifelong gaming enthusiast. I am an experienced gamesmaster and have run games at all of the HMGS East conventions. Fredricksburg will be the 20th such game I have hosted. I have also conducted Spearhead games at he conventions. I also have hosted uncountable numbers of games for my group The Rogues. You can find our website at (www.angelfire.com/pa/therogues/). Please feel free to contact me if you have need of further information.
