Salem Church Game #2

After seeing Sedgwick call off his efforts to break through the Confederate line at Salem Church and skedaddle back across the Rappahannock River (see Sedgwick REJECTed at Salem Church), Matt (wargamesinthedungeon) took up the challenge in Game #2 to lead Sedgwick forward into battle.  Game was fought on 20 September.  As a reminder, the battlefield map and opening battle deployments are shown in the battlefield photos below.

Battlefield map 

Initial dispositions

Sedgwick's objective is to break through Rebel positions and move west to flank Lee and relieve Hooker at Chancellorsville.  Does Sedgwick fare better in this clash?  Let's find out.

Sedgwick opens battle with his artillery.
Newton and Brooks bring up guns on the Orange Plank Road.
Wilcox's men at Salem Church take a pounding.
McLaws counters by putting Wofford into motion against the Federal Left.

Bartlett takes fire from Wofford
as Rebels advance through the dense woods.

While one of McLaws' guns rains down on Brown's 1NJ,
Bartlett orders his men forward into an all-out attack.
Rather than see his flank turned as in Game #1,
Bartlett takes the fight to the enemy!

Wofford is driven back into the woods with Bartlett in hot pursuit. 
While Bartlett's pursuit is checked...

Cobb's Legion is destroyed and Wofford is killed!

In the Federal Center and Right,
 Sedgwick orders a general advance as Browne and Shaler
plunge into the woods near Golin run. 
Wheaton is ordered to cover the center.

Pressure mounts on Wofford as
Bartlett's Federal attacks in the woods continue.

Outnumbered by about two-to-one,
the 16GA and Phillip's Legion dissolve in the heavy fighting.
Wofford's Brigade is wrecked!

Bartlett swings his 96PA to the right.
The Rebel Right is turned!

In Kershaw's attacks, the defenders of the farm throw the enemy back
but the remnants of 1NJ are overrun.
Brown brings up reserves to plug the gap.

The gap is plugged and Kershaw is driven off!

With the Rebels back in the woods,
Brown decides not to follow up to pursue into the unknown.

Wheaton brings his brigade up in the center.

Kershaw sends two more regiments forward to Williams' Farm,
while, to the right, Bartlett attacks into the woods against
an already wavering 15SC.

The 15SC is destroyed and the 3SC Battalion is thrown back.

Federal attacks are relentless.
The Rebels are driven back again.

While Brown maintains pressure to the front...

Bartlett continues his rampage against the enemy right.

Another of Kershaw's regiments is destroyed in the fighting.

Now Wheaton brings his brigade into action...

and the enemy is scattered.
Kershaw's Brigade is wavering...

and then breaks!

The entire Rebel Right has collapsed
with Wilcox only clinging on by a thread.
Federal artillery sees to it that Wilcox has had enough!
Wilcox is wrecked!

With three Rebel brigades now wrecked, the Rebels must retire from the field and try to slow Sedgwick's advance down the Orange Plank Road to Lee's flank.

Wow!  A decisive Federal victory for Sedgwick and Matt.  My poor Rebel army was completely manhandled by Sedgwick's XI Corps.  Looking at the detritus of battle, there was hardly any action north of the OPR.  Rather than seeing Bartlett dismantled in total as in Game #1, Matt put Bartlett on the offensive and he never let up!  Wofford was completely mauled by Bartlett and when Brown (and at the end) Wheaton joined in, the battle was decided quickly.

The Butcher's Bill tells the sorry tale for the Confederacy.  Unit losses were more than three-to-one against.  What a bloody game.  Very impressive victory, Matt!  I wonder if I can repay this pounding when we swap sides and take to the field again?  

Butcher's Bill

Great job, Matt, and a really entertaining game!  Game duration was a little over three hours and we played four turns.

Sedgwick REJECTed at Salem Church

In a reminder to just how far I have fallen behind in duties to write and post battle reports, the calendar shows that the following game was played on 14 September with five of Postie's Rejects.  Gaming in September has picked up after a more relaxed summer and I am behind the curve already.

Armies arrayed for battle.

Anyway, the game on the 14th featured five Rejects taking their seats at the remote table to refight the 1863 Battle of Salem Church.  Lee (three brigades of McLaws' Division of Kershaw, Semmes, and Wofford) and Dan (McLaw, himself, Wilcox and Mahone's Brigades) would command elements of the Rebel Army while Richard (Sedgwick, Russell and Wheaton's Brigades), Steve (Newton's Division of Shaler and Browne), and Ray (Brooks' Division of Brown and Bartlett's Brigades) would take the helm of Sedgwick's Federal XI Corps.  After two weeks and three more Salem Church battles in the books since then, let's see how much of this battle I recall.

The Rebels await the attack they know is coming.

With the Rebel Army lined up in a mostly north-to-south line passing through Salem Church on the Orange Plank Road, the Federals waste no time in bringing the fight to the enemy.

Rebel army is poised to respond to the attacks.

Brown launches a frontal assault against the Rebels
hunkered down in the dense woods.

One of Wilcox's regiments is driven out of the woods
 and Rebel guns are overrun.
Payback is a B*** and Brown is stopped by canister.

The attack at Salem Church stalls.

Russell leads an attack against the enemy in from of Perry Farm.

The Rebels are thrown back into the farmstead but before

that attack can be carried out...

Bartlett attacks Wofford on the Federal Left.

Despite some success,
 Kershaw's large Brigade is stirred into action.

Kershaw advances from his defensive positions
to put Bartlett under pressure.

Bartlett looks vastly outnumbered!

In fact, he is!
His brigade is thrown back with heavy casualties.

Bartlett is spent.

Seeing another stalled attack, Sedwick looks elsewhere.
Federals are reinforcing success north of the Orange Plank Road.

Russell and Browne coordinate attacks
 against the Rebel held Perry Farm.

Attacks on the right grind down gaining little ground.

With Bartlett wrecked and attacks against Salem Church and Perry Farm going nowhere, Sedgwick orders his Corps to disengage and head north to cross the Rappahannock before that escape route is severed.  This fight is over, but Sedgwick lives to fight another day as he moves to join Hooker.

Butcher's Bill

The Butcher's Bill shows a relatively low number of destroyed regiments in both armies, but first impressions are deceiving.  Brook's Division has suffered the brunt of the heavy fighting.  Bartlett's Brigade is wrecked and Browne's Brigade is teetering on being wrecked, itself.  For the Confederates, Wofford's Brigade is wrecked from the tussle with Bartlett, but the Federal Left has collapsed. 

Congratulations to Dan and Lee for fighting back the Federal hordes!  Still, with the relatively light casualties across both armies, I reckon that the fighting could have continued.  Sedgwick (Richard) assessed that continued fighting here against Reels in the woods would only precipitate wrecking his entire Corps.  Given that he still had an escape route available before that door was slammed shut, Sedgwick opted to disengage and move north across the Rappahannock.

This battle only saw two game turns played.  That was a lot of fighting and decision making contained in only two turns.

Thank you, Gentlemen for an engaging session!  The Rebels are 1-0, thus far, at Salem Church.  Is this a fight the Federals can win?  Stay tuned...

We Interrupt Scheduled Programming...

to bring out a late development.

As hinted at in the previous post, today's post was meant to run out a battle report from the Salem Church game with the Rejects' game from ten days ago.  Instead, I squeezed in a Zoom tutorial today between last Sunday's game with Matt and tomorrow's game.  Today's post highlights this Zoom tutorial.  This last-minute development brings the count to three Salem Church battles this week, alone.  

Andy (Muskets & Magnification blog) mentioned that he had been going through my back catalog with a particular focus on remote gaming.  The idea of playing a remote game over Zoom appealed to him and he wondered how I did it.  After exchanging a few emails, we set Friday for a test session.  In this session I hoped to share how to set up and use Zoom to log into and play a game remotely.  Since Salem Church is still out on table, I suggested that once we get the technology working, we give the game a try.  My expectation was that we might only go through a few activations to demonstrate the functionality.  We ended up playing two full turns.

Armies arrayed for battle.

Once we had Zoom working and switching cameras mastered, we dug into the demo with Andy leading the Federal Army.  Now, Andy was using his phone so views from the webcam were small.  Quite small.  Nevertheless, Andy took to playing both over Zoom and to the rules quickly with dice being thrown on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sedgwick opened the battle by ordering divisional artillery forward to pound the Rebel positions around Salem Church.  One of Wilcox's regiments was destroyed supporting Confederate guns in the woods.  Then, the Federal army advanced toward Salem Church with the Orange Plank Road as its axis. 

Federal artillery opens up.

Sedgwick on the move!

The Rebels respond by placing Semmes' Brigade on Reserve in the center and then advancing Kershaw and Wofford on the Rebel Right.  If the Rebels can turn the Federal Left, perhaps, the Union general advance will pause.

Rebels respond...

by advancing Kershaw and Wofford.

Wofford screams through the woods to hit elements of Bartlett's Brigade.  Casualties to Bartlett are heavy.  One regiment is destroyed having been pushed back, caught in retreat, and scattered.  A second regiment falls back upon supports after having been handled very roughly.  The situation is not looking good for Bartlett especially seeing a Rebel regiment on his flank.  As Bartlett reforms, Brooke turns his divisional artillery onto the flanking Rebels who are now in open ground.  Within minutes of success, those Rebels are pounded by artillery fire.  For now, the Rebels stand their ground! 

Wofford attacks and drives back the enemy.

Federal artillery pound the flanking Rebels!

With pressure mounting upon Bartlett, he orders his brigade back but not before Kershaw crashes into a Federal regiment caught in the open.  Coming out on the short end of the close combat, Bartlett's men are driven back.  A second round of artillery fire from Brooke's guns destroys the Rebels on the flank.  The Federal Left holds!

Kershaw attacks!

Seeing Bartlett falling back and Kershaw moving up, Brown counterattacks from Williams' farm.  Seeing initial success, Brown is ultimately driven back when he, himself, is counterattacked.  On the Federal Right, Wheaton moves his brigade up into the woods toward Golin Run. 

Brown driven back!

Well, after completing two full turns, we decided that this was a good introduction to both Zoom and playing a game over Zoom.  Although Andy was confined to watching the battle unfold on his phone screen, I think this exercise was a success.  Encouragingly, Andy claims that he would like to try this again despite his dice letting him down on more than one occasion.  Hooray!  Another possible conversion into remote gaming!

Thanks, Andy, for a very enjoyable session!  That was good fun!  Until we meet on the remote battlefield again.

Oh, and I still have two Salem Church battle reports to write but I did finish up basing five units this afternoon.