Confederate Dismounted Cavalry and Artillery

 

A part of me wants to just crack on with my first battle of Rolla but another annoying perfectionist voice is telling me that I have waited 45 years or so as a Toy Soldier player to launch a project this big so why not get all of the bits and pieces in place first. One of the hold-ups has been a system for dismounted cavalry. I cracked this relatively recently. A "Light Cavalry" base with more than 2 points will dismount as a Linear infantry base which can be populated using my tray system by 2 x 30 mm square bases. Each of those single 30 mm square bases can be used as the dismounted "skirmish" base produced by a 1 point mounted Volley and Bayonet ACW cavalry base. As there are 6 cavalry figures for a single point mounted cavalry base I have tried to replicate on each dismounted base with at least 5 figures including a horse holder with two horses and a standard bearer and troopers. 

I have noted that the Volley and Bayonet rules allow basing for figures less than 15 mm for artillery on 1.5 inch squares (rather than having to produce the 3 inch depth). This looks better but I will use a deeper base when the artillery is limbered. You can see above my first confederate smooth bore artillery piece representing a small battery. The buildings on the left of the picture are my first attempt at a 3 inch x 2 inch "village" base. I have left space in each corner for a 30 mm (my 1.5 inch square) cavalry skirmish base. All of my built scenery is at 6 mm scale and this seems to be working well with 10 mm figures. Red Vector make a good mdf 6 mm fence section with a base which when quickly painted and flocked comes up well. I have invested in a lot of stuff from Timecast as well including the latest rubber fields. These come up really well with a good coat of cheap Burnt Umber from the hobby store and and some Javis field scatter. I am starting to get the look I want. 

The Union forces at Rolla include elements from the 1st and 2nd US cavalry these troopers made the leap to the tabletop last week before I set off on a short holiday. I will need a couple of dismounted bases as well for these guys.

S&A scenics are providing the real background for my tabletop in terms of roads, streams, hills and good set of trees to get me going. I have heard that any civil war battlefield should just be over populated with trees so I will set to work with that. I have painted up a model  Appomattox court house model bright red in homage to the original Rolla court house on my battlefield.

Elements left to complete include at least two bases for limbered artillery, a couple of leadership bases and probably one more Union massed infantry base. The Union forces at Rolla are a single 3 point map counter in the War Between the States Game (c. 3,000 bayonets) which could either represent on Volley and Bayonet tabletop as two massed 3 point brigade bases or a single full strength 6 point brigade base. I think the latter is a better representation for the union forces. Smaller contingents for this small initial battle. On the scenery front I am now almost there. Trees, trees and more trees and a couple more village enclosures. I could do with quite a few more fence sections as well although I note that fences were much rarer in the Western theatre than in the East so I won't beat myself up if every road is not lined with fences. 

See you in Hell Bill Yank ! See you in Hell Johnny Reb ! 

Building Rolla

 

I took delivery of a nice package of terrain from S&A scenics  this morning. Essentially a tester purchase of roads, rivers, trees and hills. Some absolute basics. I am really pleased and I have put in another bumper order so that I can populate fairly decent tables up to perhaps 12' x 6'. The roads in particular are great and reasonably priced. Felt on one side which is rubberised and textured and painted.  

It was very hard not to have a "play" and to march Price's Missouri State Guard through the town and off down the Jamestown  Road. I found a German website which has paper models of a town in 6mm/N scale for the locals to download and make for Xmas. The school can double as a Court house for now and there are a bunch of wooden farm buildings that look the part. The CourtHouse in Rolla was of course red - I am considering getting my pencils out. 

The narrow river kit is also really well made - all backed on MDF and it comes painted in sensible sections. The mat is a nice fleece from Geek Villain. I want to get more but they are currently sold out.  I have worked out what else I need to buy to complete the Rolla map. I am setting a deadline now for fighting the first battle I think as soon as the final terrain arrives which might be 3-4 weeks. 

The confederate cavalry is complete and just needs the bases flocking. I then need the Union cavalry and dismounted troopers for both sides and a couple of artillery pieces. Perhaps another 1-2 weeks work in total. I am due to take a "break" - seems odd calling it that as I am retired. I am going up to Northumberland for big beaches and landscapes - Berwick on Tweed, Bamburgh and the Farne isles etc. I am tempted to pack my stuff but I very much doubt I will get away with that. I could take some paints and a brigade or two to fill the evenings. 

Plotting Rolla

 

Above : Google Image Rolla 

I couldn't sleep last night which was annoying so I got up about 4 am and decided to create my battlefield for Rolla. The screenshot of the local area above has been tipped on its side so that the top of the Photo is East. The large woodlands of the Mark Twain Forest are to the East also and the Ozarks wilderness and lake area broadly to the South East. 

There is a lot you can work out from maps and  satellite photos  on google. I have already established that Rolla was a  quite a small town in 1861. It still is - population c. 20,000 today. The Court House was roofed but unfinished  in 1861 which is presumably why the Union were able to use it as warehouse and hospital during the early part of the war. There are a handful of heritage buildings in Rolla but apart from the courthouse it would appear wooden built. Main Street is barely 200 m long and there are a few other gridded roads from old photos. It is wonderful bringing an old place back to life.  

The picture below is the town in 1860. Maybe a handful of  two story buildings only. A hotel and one or two grander houses and stores in town. Towards the edge of town just simple single story two or three room wooden houses.  There is probably some warehousing and facilities for the railroad terminus in the photo (the railroad planned to reach San Francisco from St.Louis ended here in 1861). 

Above : Historic Photo of City of Rolla (see footer) 

I don't think the town will need more than one Volley and Bayonet 6 inch x 4 inch template (An area 600 m x 400 m in ground scale). I have found a few more pictures of heritage buildings on public sites online. The courthouse : -

An old wooden schoolhouse :- 

And the County Jail block from the early Nineteenth century :-  

The road plan reveals an "Old St. James Road" leading on to St. Louis. From the map I have been able to find other old roads leading at different points of the compass to the nearby locations of Vichy, Salem and to Yancy Mills. The area is much more wooded than I expected with numbers of watercourses. It's possible that these might be seasonal given one of the names - "Little Dry Creek". I have been able to place some high ground to the North and West of the town, probably from where the photo above might have been taken. There are some tree lines  along the old watercourses and a few farms. Out come the coloured pencils and some common sense and can think back to this roughly 3 mile x 2 mile or 6 x 4 foot table for Rolla in 1861. 

The names of the tributary streams display the part German heritage of the town - "Franz Branch" and "Burgher Branch" e.g.  The aerial photo shows that the irrigated sections that are not hilly or wooded are densely marked out with square land claim plots. This original land claim parcelling is thrown forward into the more recent land use. So for example a local golf is crammed entirely into a  square plot that must have been bought originally as farmland. The same holds true for housing developments that fit to the square "claims" pattern out into the farmland surrounding the historic town. You just don't get that grid pattern of land use in the UK. In the US it is is extended into the farmland itself. 

The areas that are white on my "original" plan will randomly be carpet bombed with some square fields and a few square orchards or "wood lots". to show the land usage.  As the battle will take place in July some of the fields can hold crops which will behave appropriately under the Volley and Bayonet rules - blocking line of site until trampled by massed stands.  The streams whilst perhaps dry(ish) can operate as fordable streams for the purpose of the rules. They will cost half a movement to cross and where lines with a thicker area pf wood may affect visibility/ 

This will do - The Confederates line of communication will leave the map ay the middle bottom (West) toward Jefferson City and the Union troops from the East along the St. James/St.Louis road. I will post again when the two forces are complete and on my newly dressed tabletop. I am tossing up whether to build a small scratch built red courthouse from card. It does seem appropriate. I have opted for 6 mm scenery with my 10 mm figures and a lot of scenery and "dressing" is in the post. My cavalry are coming on in fits and starts so it may be a week before I can roll a dice in anger. 

Until then See you in hell Billy Yank ! See you in hell Johnny Reb ! 

Research for the Battle of Rolla, Phelps County, Missouri - Detailed Order of Battle - Tabletop Terrain

 

Above : Rolla Courthouse today (from a public site on the City of Rolla) 

I am paused at the end of phase 1 7/61 in my game creating a tabletop and the final units for the battle of Rolla. This is my early alternative to the Battle of Wilson's Creek. 

 I give full credit to Wikipedia without which I would not get very far for quick research. I need to understand how to get access to the National Archives of the United States and State Archives - I prefer prime sources ! In particular I am really keen to get my hands on a copy of a map of the Central Counties of Missouri from about this time. I expect it was created to assist with the railroad survey. I love all this history. I am from the UK but it feels like "our" history as well. Every family of British origin in the United Kingdom has forgotten parts of it scattered all over the world. Fully a third of all soldiers fighting in Civil War armies were first generation immigrants. British Immigrants had been streaming to the Colonies and then the United States in increasing numbers for two hundred and fifty years. The Mid-West and its new frontier for settlement was a focus for migration from Central Europe and in particular Germany and Scandanavia as well. That's reflected in the Union armies of the Mid-West in particular. 

So I have been having fun researching the place of a battle that never happened. For this first battle of my campaign it feels as if it was meant to be. Historically Price's forces actually withdrew further to the South-West around Wilson's Creek and Sigel's 3rd Missouri Regiment (the beloved German American General  - "We fight Mit Sigel") took possession of the town bloodlessly on  3 June 1861 after the fall of Fort Sumter in May. 

The town was strategically important for the fight for Missouri as it is the terminus or extent of what was to become the South-West Pacific Railroad from St. Louis to the West Coast at the outset of the War. The Phelp's County Courthouse, which was completed in 1860 was a Union hospital serving casualties from the battles of Wilson's Creek in August 1861 and Pea Ridge the next year. The town was host to a concentration of up to 20,000 Union troops. As well as the railroad  from St Louis there was a road which ran from St. Louis to Rolla which is now the interstate I44. On my campaign map the railroad peters out as it did in 1861. 

Rolla is located in Phelp's County Missouri, a County that was only created in November 1857. The first farms were settled along the rivers in this area in 1819. The town itself was named on the suggestion of one George Coppedge from South Carolina for his home town of  "Raleigh".  The townsfolk agreed after a discussion but only if it could have a simpler spelling - "Rolla". A dispute over which town would be the seat of Phelp's County between  newly arrived "Easterners" in Dillon and "Westerners" in Rolla was settled in the confederate leaning "Westerners" favour by the Missouri legislature in November 1860.

As Fort Sumter fell the townsfolk came out for the confederacy. The area's circuit judge James McBride left to take up a position as a General under Sterling Price. Outside the courthouse a group of men tore down the star spangled banner and raised a confederate flag stitched by the women of Rolla. The mob then went to  the offices of the Rolla Express, a paper owned and run by a union sympathiser Charles Walter and forced him to stop his presses. The  belligerent Southern mob then patrolled the town forcing Union sympathisers to leave. 

I am not sure I need too much of an alternate history - we have fertile newly confederate ground for the Missouri State Guard to defend ! Sterling Price together with the circuit Judge James Mcbride does not leave but begins to take up positions to protect the town. Union sympathisers turned out of their homes  begin to arrive in St Louis. Lyons decides to move before Sterling Price can be reinforced from Arkansas and Louisiana to the South . Lyons moves his men by railroad to the next stop on the railway at St James. His Federal force of 4,000 cavalry and infantry is just ten miles from the town and begins to march to seize back control of the crucial railway terminus. The fight is on for the gateway to the rest of Missouri and in particular Springfield to the South West. 

So both sides want the railroad terminus. Price to maintain a way to move troops toward St. Louis to physically re-take Missouri and Lyon's to begin to stage and build logistics in order to eject the Confederates from the State altogether. The battle for Missouri will begin 6 weeks earlier than occurred historically. It "feels" historical and thank you whoever wrote the description on Wikipedia of events in Rolla at the outbreak of the Civil War. 

Order of Battle and Painting Progress 

I have time to "flesh out" some colour  on the orders of battle I am completing for the tabletop for the two sides at Rolla. I am going to give the second infantry brigade to another lawyer turned soldier William Slack rather than James McBride. Slack has a good story. 

Confederates 

The game counter line in the tracker  should now reads as follows :-

A2014 Rolla, Price***2-1, C2, M4 (Weightman 4-4 PT NE,  Slack 4-4 PT NE,  Cawthorn Cav 2-5 SS PT, Rives Cavalry 2-5 SS PT,  Guibor 2-5 SB-F PT)

I am assuming that the battle is too early for any State regiments to have arrived from the "Army of the West" across Arkansas and Louisiana. Price will have at his disposal the Missouri State Guard and other locally raised confederate volunteer Regiments. I will not treat Militia counter bases as "militia" under the V&B rules (i.e. apply a disorder marker from the outset)  :- 

Price Command 

Price ** Divisional Commander - Exhaustion 5 

(1) Militia Brigade Base 1

Col. Richard Hanson Weightman - Missouri State Guard Infantry Brigade (1st-4th) M4  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] PT NE

Above : Weightman (see site footer)

Colonel Hanson-Weightman was killed at Wilson's Creek. 

(2) Militia Brigade Base 2

Brigadier General William Slack commanding Various Missouri  Infantry Regiments  M4 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] PT NE

Slack was lawyer and member of the Missouri General Assembly. He had served as a young captain in the Mexican War and was appointed a Brigadier General of Militia to command one of the small "divisions" of the Missouri militia at Wilson's Creek in Price's hotch-potch army of 12,000 men. Slack distinguishes himself at Wilson's Creek and is in the thick of the action buying time for the confederate army to organise itself after the initial assault and receiving a wound to the hip. He is then appointed by the confederacy to the command of the second Missouri Brigade in the "Army of the West". He dies on 21 March 1862 aged 45 from a further wound  sustained at the battle of Pea Ridge on March 7 1862. He can lead my second Missouri Militia infantry base at the Battle of Rolla. 

(3) Militia Cavalry Brigade Base 1 

Colonel James Cawthorn - Missouri State Guard Cavalry Brigade - M5 [S] [S] PT NE - Armed with muzzle loading carbines (treat as muskets with 2" range). 

2 and 3 strength point cavalry are treated as Light Cavalry under rule 23.1.1 of Volley and Bayonet RtG. Lights Cavalry is on a massed base initially. The bases can break down into cavalry skirmish bases. A massed Light Cavalry base dismounts as a linear infantry base. Skirmish Cavalry bases dismount as skirmish infantry bases. 

(4) Militia Cavalry Brigade Base 2

Colonel Benjamin Rives commanding various Confederate Militia Cavalry Regiments including the Rives, Majors, Browns and Campbell's cavalry  - M 5 PT [S] [S ] (see rules above) 

There are two artillery batteries in the Missouri State Guard and Militia regiments - Bledsoe's and Guibor's Battery. I will combine them but give the command to Captain Guibor, another veteran of the Mexican War who was originally arrested in the Camp Jackson affair (the attempt to secure the Missouri state arsenal for the confederacy). After being paroled and ignoring this on a technicality Guibor then commands his Missouri battery and fights a long and distinguished war. Guibor is wounded, captured at Vicksburg and fights on to eventually surrender in South Carolina with the remnants of Joe Johnston's army in March 1865. 

(5) Guibor -Missouri State Artillery 2-5 SB-F PT 

My Bases for the Confederates then now all have names. 

Union - Lyons Command - Exhaustion 5 

Lyons*** -  Corps Commander 

The game counter line in the tracker should now read :-

A.      Lyons ** C1, I3 (Sigel 3-5, Andrews M5 3-5, Sturgis Cav 2-5 SS, Totten Art 2-5 SB-F PT 

(1) Infantry Brigade 1 

Franz Sigel 1st and 2nd US Infantry & 3rd and 5th Missouri Infantry M5 [ ] [ ] [ ]  

(2) Infantry Brigade 2 

Lt Colonel George Lippitt Andrews 1st Missouri Infantry, 2nd US Infantry M5 [ ] [ ] [ ] 

(2) Cavalry Brigade 1 

Sturgis 1st US Cavalry & 2nd US Dragoons M5 [S] [S] (Treat as Light Cavalry rule 23.1.1 V&B RtGlory - Breach loading carbines) 

Sturgis was a cavalry officer in the Mexican war and served in the cavalry throughout the Civil War until eventually having his command routed by Nathan Bedford Forest at the Battle of Brice's Mill in 1864, 

(3) Artillery Brigade 

Captain James Totten 2nd US Artillery Brigade & Backofs Missouri Light Artillery - SB-F PT  M5 [ ] [ ] 

Totten was an artillery officer in charge of the arsenal at Little Rock and was surrounded and captured at the outbreak of the war. Transferring to Lyons command he remained in command of the 2nd US Artillery. He was noted as having a colourful style of cursing while giving orders to his battery, so much so that bystanders would form to listen to the show ! He was commanding a siege battery at Mobile when the war ended in 1865. He remained in the US Army but eventually was court martially in 1870 for insubordination and conduct unbefitting an officer. He died in Missouri in 1871. I am assuming he was a big drinker. Totten can lead the US Artillery in the West for now ! 

Table Top 

Rolla itself was not a large town in 1861. There is the road and railway to place on the board leading away to the North-East towards the Union staging point at St James and on to St. Louis. Any map of the area does not suggest anything major in terms of hills - the Ozarks are away to the South. There are no large areas of woods or wilderness areas. I will "dress" the battlefield in gentle hardscrabble farmland and small woods with crops appropriate for July. Given the size of the two forces a 6 x 4 table should be more than adequate. It is the West so it will be less manicured than say South Carolina or Virginia which had been populated by whites for over two hundred years. 

There is no need for any complicated RtG random system plan. Neither side is possessing sufficient commanders or units to attempt anything complex. The Confederate forces will deploy to defend Rolla itself and the Union side aim will be to expel them from Rolla and to secure the Confederate line of communication back to Springfield. 

Other Battle Rules 

I am using the Volley and Bayonet ACW campaign rules for battles. Relevant rules are as follows :- 

The battle will commence at 1 D6 plus 5 am in July and end at 8 pm. The Union forces will appear at 7 am at the LOC in March Column and deploy. 

The side in posession of the battlefield will recover 2/3s of their lost strength points. Strength points will be rounded up when being transposed back to the counter strength. The actual bases can be amended accurately on the roster.  An orderly withdrawal with a rearguard will allow a retiring army to recover 1/2 of its losses including artillery. An army that retires in disorder or rout will lose all of its artillery and  only recover 1/3 of its strength point losses. 

Finally after the battle each side will be able to test for battlefield promotions. I will apply the principles in the Volley and Bayonet ACW campaign rules for promotions from Green to Veteran and Veteran to Crack. The Green to Veteran promotion can affect all of the stands in a single division counter. The division must have either taken or given casualties.  Crack promotions would affect only one stand whose division would need to engage in combat and become exhausted without also suffering a loss of morale. So this in theory could apply to Lyons command at this stage.  Crack divisions can also be created through a reoccurring promotion on a quarterly basis. Two counters in each army can also receive a promotion to veteran through training after each phase. It does seem that "Green" status is quite easy to lose after the first battle but as noted I am not applying this for Militia or garrison units.