Failed attack on Newport - August 1, 1861

Once again, Colonel Frank Wolford advanced across the South Branch River from North Bank with a force of Union cavalry in an effort to capture the town of Newport. Colonel Joseph Wheeler and the 1st Tennessee met Wolford again, straddling the Old Stage Road on the elevated position north of town. After a brief fight, the Union cavalrymen were ordered to retreat back to North Bank.

Federal Cavalry Turned Back at Arlington - August 1, 1861

A battalion of Union cavalry (3rd Battalion, 3rd Kentucky) moved on Arlington from Tomlin's Ford. Instead of waiting in town, a regiment of Alabama infantry (2nd Alabama) advanced out to meet the enemy. The Federals opened fire at long range, but the Confederates fired as the closed-in and then delivered a volley at close range that drove the Union cavalrymen back to Tomlin's Ford.

Probing Rowland Mills - August 1st

A small battalion of Union cavalry left Atkins Ford and conducted a probe around Rowland Mills. It met a regiment of Alabama infantry and withdrew back to the ford light losses.

Pending Engagements on August 1st

News of fighting on August 1st should start arriving soon. The actions will be cavalry engagements in some of the usual places.

Camps of Parole Established

Each side has established a camp of parole and agreed to hold paroled officers and men in those camps until formally exchanged. So far, only two officers have been exchanged (by special arrangement). Colonel James S , Johnson (3rd Kentucky Cavalry US) was exchanged for Lieutenant Colonel Thomas H. Taylor (1st Kentucky Infantry CS). Both have rejoined their regiments.

Before the end of August, each headquarters will receive a report of the number of men from each unit in the parole camp on August 1st 1861. These men will be eligible for exchange and able to rejoin their units by September 1, 1861.

First News of August 1861: Confederates Re-Occupy Madison

On August 1st 1861, Confederates advanced on Madison prepared to fight Colonel Solomon Lewis' Indiana infantry and supporting artillery which had been occupying the town. They marched into Madison without firing a shot. Citizens report that Colonel Lewis' force left in the morning, marching west on the West Fork Road. The Confederates have immediately started repairing damage to the Madison rail depot, but the status of the Burlington Depot to the south is still unclear. Supplies and troops cannot arrive by rail to Madison until the tracks around Burlington have been repaired.

DYOD_Riggleman Available

Riggleman has been posted.

The saw mill north of Riggleman and part of a large cleared area.

The Village of Riggleman, looking north up the North Branch Road toward the saw mill. 

All Turn 5 Orders In - Turn to Begin This Week

All Turn 5 Orders have been received. The turn running from August 1 - August 8, 1861 should start this week.  I have to finish plotting the movement and engagements, but expect to work on that starting Tuesday or Wednesday. With any luck, we may have the first engagement on Thursday this week. (I don't know where it will be yet.

DYOD_Auburn available

DYOD_Auburn is now available. It requires some new packages, that are also available on the mod page.

Next Maps in the making....

As the Union side is working on orders, I am working on some more maps. I will be adding a few new packages (for the TC2M mods used in the simulation) that will add buildings and features on the newer maps. I was going to move on to Jackson, but big towns at rail junctions are very time consuming. Instead I am starting two less complicated maps: Auburn and Riggleman.

Auburn is a small cross roads town east of Harper's Station. Riggleman is directly to Auburn's east and will have a few scattered households and a sawmill in a densely wooded area.  Neither map is very strategically significant in the grander scheme of the campaign.  They are the last two unfinished maps from the original 42 maps in the  "South Branch Campaign" simulation of 2017.  The campaign theater has slowly been expanded through the subsequent "North Branch Campaign" (2018) and the Grand Campaign (2019).

Burlington Map Completed

The DYOD_Burlington map has been completed and uploaded onto the mods page.

Looking southeast into Burlington town. 

Looking north toward Burlington town from Bromley. 

Update - Burlington Map Under Construction

We are not quite ready to run Turn 5 yet. In the meantime, I have been working on the map for Burlington, a strategic rail junction at the south central part of the campaign theater. Troops and supplies from Bristol (the Confederate base of supply) pass through Burlington to points west, such as the junction at Jackson. From Burlington, the Madison Spur takes rail traffic north to the town of Madison in the center sector of the campaign theater.

The situation at Burlington is not currently clear. What is known is that Federal cavalry of unknown strength occupied the town in the last week of July and damaged the rails and depot there. It is not known if they are still occupying Burlington on the morning of August 1st.  Until Burlington is back under Confederate control and the rails repaired, supplies and troop movement are constrained in the Department of Tennessee.

The TC2M modded map for Burlington should be out this week. The minimap has already been posted on the reference maps page.

Update - Moving Toward Turn 5

Both sides have re-organized their forces. August 1861 has more troops and better quality troops than the previous month. It should be interesting. Confederate orders are in for Turn 5.  I am continuing to work on some of the background spreadsheets, but I am still hopeful that Turn 5 will run in October.

Regimental Field Staff - Promotion to Colonel

When no colonel is present in a regiment, the post is considered vacant, with the titular commander absent. Regimental level promotions cost 1 resource point. However, when a lieutenant colonel is promoted to the rank of colonel, he is considered the titular commander of the regiment and all other field officer positions in the regiment will be filled at no additional cost. (Senior officers will be promoted to lieutenant colonel and major.)

Turns in August 1861

The simulated "weeks" for the turns during August 1861 will be as follows:


Turn 5: August 1 - August 8

Turn 6: August 9 - August 16

Turn 7: August 17 - August 23

Turn 8: August 24 - August 31

End August 1861 (Month-end Reports and Re-organization)

Behind the Scenes Improvements

The Confederates have re-organized and strengthened their forces for the start of August 1861.  The Union side is doing the same and is done or almost done. We are all learning from our first four turns of the Grand Campaign. On the "behind the scenes" side, I am improving all of the templates I use to track movement, casualties, attrition, etc. to make it easier to set up scenarios, record data, and prepare reports.

In Turns 1 - 4, I had to go back to the end save for the last scenario in which a unit fought to find out what its ammo status was at the end of the engagement and carry it into the units next scenario. I also was using single cells in an excel spreadsheet to record killed, wounded and missing for each unit during a month. This meant adding numbers on with each engagement.  (e.g. The killed cell for a casualty battalion would end up being something like: =4+3+1+6+2, with the latest losses being added after each fight.) It was a lot of work and had the potential for errors.

For Turns 5 - 8,  I will have a separate spreadsheet for each unit, with rows for each day of August 1861. After a unit is engaged, I go to each unit's spreadsheet, go to the row with the date of the engagement, and enter in casualties, grade, and ending ammo. It then generates the balance of men present for duty, ammunition remaining, and grade.  This makes it a lot easier to find, as opposed to identifying the unit's last engagement, opening the end save in TC2M and then going to the unit to get the data. I plan to link the totals from these sheets to an attrition sheet (casualties, sickness, desertion, returned convalescents, returned, prisoners, etc., and then link the attrition sheet into the sheet I use for end of month returns. Live and learn.

I have also updated my movement sheet, which shows where each ends each day of the month and when it intersects with an enemy unit resulting in an engagement. The movement sheet is where a turn starts, after I have received orders from both sides.

We may be able to to get Turn 5 started in October. I can't wait to see what the Union side looks like and then get the first week's orders.

Orders of Battle: July 1861

Every unit in the campaign theater was engaged at some point during the 1st month of the Grand Campaign command simulation. The orders of battle from July 1861 are now known to both players, but are likely to change as new units take to the field in August.  The orders of battle for Turns 1 - 4 were are follows:

Union

District of the Ohio: Major General William T. Sherman

1st Brigade: Colonel Benjamin F. Smith

• 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry
• 2nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry
• 3rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry
• 4th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

2nd Brigade: Colonel Solomon Lewis

• 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry
• 2nd Indiana Volunteer Infantry
• 3rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry
• 4th Indiana Volunteer Infantry

Cavalry Brigade: Colonel Frank L. Wolford

• 1st Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry
• 2nd Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry
• 3rd Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry

Battery "A," 1st Ohio Light Artillery*

Battery "A," 1st Michigan Light Artillery

1st Battalion, Ohio Engineers

*Battery "A" 1st Illinois Light Artillery was originally assigned to the district, but through a clerical error, it was assigned to another district and Battery "A" 1st Ohio arrived in Georgetown assigned to the District of the Ohio. 

Confederate

District of Tennessee: Major General Earl J. Starbuck

Buckner's Brigade: Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner*

• 1st Kentucky Infantry
• 2nd Kentucky Infantry
• 3rd Kentucky Infantry

Cleburne's Brigade: Brigadier General Patrick R. Cleburne

• 1st Alabama Infantry
• 2nd Alabama Infantry
• 3rd Alabama Infantry

Stewart's Brigade: Brigadier General Alexander Stewart

• 1st Tennessee Infantry
• 2nd Tennessee Infantry
• 3rd Tennessee Infantry
• 2nd Battalion Tennessee Engineers

Forrest's (Cavalry) Brigade: Brigadier General Nathan B. Forrest*

• 1st Tennessee Cavalry
• 2nd Tennessee Cavalry
• Mosby's Partisan Rangers**

Rector's Tennessee Battery

1st Battalion, Tennessee Engineers

*Wounded

**Disbanded July 31

Occupied Territory: July 31st 1861

Most of  July 1861 was spent on probes and skirmishes along the Kingston Road in the center and east of the campaign theater, and at Riverside / Orr Tavern and Newport / North Branch in the far west. The Confederates made the first venture deep into enemy territory with a failed raid on Georgetown on July 15th. The raid temporarily diverted some Federal cavalry from the fords at the Bull Head River to search for the raiding party, which had safely escaped back to friendly lines.

By the last week in July, however, the Federals took to the offensive. A small demi-brigade of Indiana infantry pushed south down the Madison Pike and took control of the rail terminus at Madison. An unidentified force of Union cavalry somehow made it through or around Confederate lines, cut telegraph lines at Adamstown, and occupied Burlington. They are believed to be present at Burlington on the night of July 31st, continuing to destroy tracks on the South Bank Railroad.

The map below shows the Union foray into Confederate territory as a sort of dagger into the heart of the District of Tennessee. This has the potential to create significant supply and troop movement problems for the Confederates, but it is also a very tenuous position to hold, with at least one Confederate brigade known to be east of "the dagger," and Confederates occupying Newtown west of the dagger. Colonel Solomon Lewis' force at Madison had brief contact with Confederates approaching from the north, demonstrating the threat that the Indiana regiments and their supporting artillery could potentially be cut off from the rest of the Union force. The cavalry at (or near) Burlington will also be out of supply and could potentially be cut off from their lines.

Both sides expect to receive re-enforcements on August 1st. Confederate Major General Starbuck will undoubtedly make an effort to regain control of Burlington and the Madison Spur of the railroad. Will Major General William T. Sherman's Federal force try to re-enforce the position at Madison, or attempt a withdraw to a stronger main line to the north? We will find out when the next turn takes us into August 1861,