Civil War Maps brings together materials from three premier collections: the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia. Among the reconnaissance, sketch, and theater-of-war maps are the detailed battle maps made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss for Generals Lee and Jackson, General Sherman’s Southern military campaigns, and maps taken from diaries, scrapbooks, and manuscripts—all available for the first time in one place.
Most of the items presented here are documented in Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress, compiled by Richard W. Stephenson in 1989. New selections from 2,240 maps and 76 atlases held by the Library will be added monthly.
cartographic items made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828-1899), a topographic engineer in the Confederate Army. Hotchkiss made detailed battle maps primarily of the Shenandoah Valley, some of which were used by the Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson for their combat planning and strategy. Several of the maps have annotations of various military officers, demonstrating their importance in the military campaigns. The collection also includes maps made or used by Hotchkiss during his post-war years, including maps with information about railroads, minerals and mining, geology and history, most of which focus on Virginia and West Virginia, but also cover other states and even the world.
The collection consists of 341 sketchbooks, manuscripts, and annotated printed maps, the originals of which reside in the Library of Congress’ Geography and Map Division.
Vincent Tume offers a Fire and Fury scenario generator program. I can’t test it, because I don’t own a macintosh. But I’d really like someone out there to give it a go and tell me what its like.
Vincent Tume offers a Fire and Fury scenario generator program. I can’t test it, because I don’t own a macintosh. But I’d really like someone out there to give it a go and tell me what its like.
About 15 years ago, I participated in a battle of Gettysburg game that was unique in a couple of ways.
First, the game was huge—the table was 30 or so feet long.
Second, it was designed to show the problems of command, control and communication: the Union and Confederate army commanders were sequestered in nearby rooms with maps and could only get their information about what was going on through written communications. The corps commanders sat on a balcony, where they could see the battlefield, but still had to communicate via written messages with the army commanders and the division and brigade commanders, who were on the floor. The brigade commanders moved the pieces, then discussed their movements with their division commanders. The division commanders sent the messages on to the corps commanders, who sent runners to the army commanders in their rooms. I was a referee, so I had the chance to see the terrible confusion at all levels. The army commanders had maps that, at the end, bore little resemblance to the actual positions of the troops on the field. At the same time, the division and brigade commanders found themselves being ordered to conduct movements that didn’t make a lot of sense ... often because they had acted on their own initiative, which left the army commanders thinking that they were somewhere they were not.
The other unique thing abot the game was that all of the figure were done in origami: blue for the union and grey for the confederates, of course. Groups of students apparently had spent months folding the things. It was absolutely beautiful. If this interests you, you could check out the instructions for 15mm folded paper figures here.
Peter Hunt of the Hong Kong Society of Wargamers has written a set of articles about Naval Warfare in the American Civil War. This is, I think, a sadly neglected period for wargamers. I have a couple of dozen ships in 1/1200 scale, and the games have always been well received.
Mike's Hobby Home has this primer on American Civil War artillery. The information includes a good table on the various pieces, including data on the shot size, range of the weapons, elevation and the number in use.
Historical miniature gamers can never have enough research material. Here is a huge collection of primary source material on the United States from the Antebellum through Reconstruction. This University of Michigan digital library has 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. The collection should be of particular interest to Civil War and Mexican American war gamers.
Here are a few scenarios for the Volley and Bayonet miniature wargames rules set. They also could be useful for a number of other miniature wargames rules sets.
Alan Saunders has a number of scenarios for the Fire and Fury American Civil War miniatures rules, including Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, Perryville, Prairie Grove, Pleasantville, West Port and Bentonville.
Miniature Wargaming is part of the "adventure games" hobby, which includes r ole p laying and board games. Wargamers recreate battles on the tabletop with toy soldiers, like a more complicated game of chess. Models range in height from 6mm to 28mm tall, with 15mm and 25mm being the most popular. There also is a growing interest in toy soldiers and military models, such as the 1/32 and 1/35 scale plastic soldiers from Conte, and Marx.
The most popular miniature wargames are fantasy and science fiction based, such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine and The Lord of the Rings. World War II games such as Flames of War and Axis and Allies are new favorites. Other favorite historical periods include Napoleonics, the American Civil War, and ancients, such as Romans or Greeks. Other gamers enjoy miniature naval wargames, recreating battles like Trafalgar, Jutland and the Coral Sea.
Hobbyists research historical periods and paint their tiny soldiers in accurate uniforms. Others develop "historically realistic" rules sets or build scale battlefield terrain using model railroad techniques.
For pictures, visit the gallery.
Some of the bigger hobby companies are Games Workshop, which produces Warhammer, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory Miniatures. Wizards of the Coast produces several lines of pre-painted miniatures games, such as the Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures games, and a historical game with pre-painted miniatures: The new Axis and Allies game. Wizkids produces a fantasy collectable miniatures game, such as the Mage Knight and Heroclick fantasy games, the science fiction games MechWarrior and Rocketmen, as well as the quasi-historical Pirates of the Spanish Main.
