"The Footsteps of Illustrious Men"- USA GC AAR

stnylan: Yeah, it was not really what I wanted to happen.

Alex Borhild: Yeah, loosing the capital was no good, especially for my war exhaustion.

RGB: Confederate relations with the Brits and French are much higher than I'd like to see.

Vincent Julien: Perhaps...

Blue Grass Victory
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During the Confederate conquest of Washington D.C., Albert Johnston took the offensive. Johnston had captured Nashville during the late fall, and spent much of the winter battling with small rebel forces throughout the state. By November he had driven the Confederates back south of Columbia. Sherman’s Army of the Missouri was pushing from the West, and Sheridan’s march across the Southern coast was draining reserves. Suddenly General Hardee found himself out-powered on all fronts. Sherman marched his army South and took winter quarters in Memphis. Johnston stood still in Nashville waiting for the spring thaw.

While in the West the Confederate armies were halted by winter, Johnston had to find a way to drive the Confederates out of Western Virginia. Most supplies for the Bragg’s army in Charleston (Jackson marched back east towards Cumberland, Maryland. Confederate supplies to Charleston had to come up North from Tennessee, as the Baltimroe-Ohio railroad was destroyed by Union troops marching out of Maryland. The Blue Ridge Mountains were far too dangerous to cross with supplies during the winter, especially given the large number of partisans in Western Virginia. Johnston knew that if he could drain Confederate supplies, come Spring Bragg would be forced to return to Tennessee. Johnston sent out 1,000 men, who destroyed roads and ambushed supply lines, the Confederates could do nothing to stop them.


Braxton Bragg

Bragg, at the start of spring, did in fact march south. Johnston leapt at him, and ordered Sherman to push against Chattanooga. General Hardee was sent an order to delay and engage Johnston. Sherman marched south faster than Hardee expected. Sherman engaged Hardee and won the brief battle of Sherwood, where Hardee was slain. Meanwhile Johnston’s army met a tired Confederate army under Bragg at Gatlinburg. Bragg had expected to march quickly along the mountains and descend onto an engaged Johnston’s rear. But when Hardee failed to escape Sherman, Bragg was alone. Pro-Union raiders delayed Bragg as well, meaning his army arrived tired, out of supply and bloodied.


The Battle of Raven Branch

Bragg’s army poured south out of the hills and onto the level ground around Raven Branch, Tennessee. The Union struck quickly, and camped itself in the way of Bragg. Bragg, still clinging to the dream of support, struck. Bragg himself held the center, with Law on his left, and Longstreet just behind him still in the high grounds. Aligned against them were Johnston, Hooker and Wallace. Bragg and Law marched south and engaged the main line of the Union center. Meanwhile, Wallace was pressed hard by Longstreet. Longstreet blasted aside Wallace’s force, and drove him back. At this sight, the rest of the Union army began to shudder under the Confederate approach. It looked liked Longstreet’s assault was going to spring Bragg free to return to the CSA.



Johnston deployed his entire reserves to stem the retreat. Wallace was able to reform and hold while Longstreets assault ran out of steam. Suddenly the wear and tear on the Confederate troops caught up to them. Longstreet’s men collapsed where they stood. Johnston’s timely deployment broke Bragg’s center line. When Bragg fell back, Johnston gave chase and was able to cut the Confederate lines in half. The result was a mess. Law’s men fled east, and Longstreet fought a retreat south-west. Johnston pushed north and captured 3,000 of Bragg’s men, and then turned to help Sherman capture Knoxville. The Confederates had been defeated in Tennessee, and with Sheridan marching East across the Confederate heartland, the war was taking a new turn North.

stnylan: Yeah, loosing Tennessee and Kentucky would have lost me the war.

JimboIX: Welcome aboard! This is my primary AAR, with my CK AAR sort of coming in second place, need to get on over there and fix that some.

RGB: The west is about to come crashing into the East as Chatanooga is the gateway to Georgia.

The Battle of Frederick
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Confederate President Albert G. Brown realized the precarious situation he was in. On one hand he controlled the Union capital, and was steadily convincing the state of Maryland to join the Confederacy. However the Confederate Heartland was under siege. Already the manpower of the Confederacy was being drained. Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and the Border States were all under Union control. Meanwhile all the men raised in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina were being rushed to help the armies on the Southern front. Suddenly Virginia was facing half the Union armies, alone. Brown, in Richmond, realized the end was near. The British had denied his call for recognition and aid. The French recognized the Confederacy, and were sending men and material, but few of it would reach Virginia unscathed.

After Albert Sydney Johnston’s success in the Tennessee theatre, the Union command called him East to command the Army of the Potomac. Johnston, leaving his army in the command of William T. Sherman, gladly took the command, and the offensive. The Eastern Army had reformed in Pennsylvania, and had been infused with reinforcements from New York and Ohio. These men, under Johnston’s command, began their march south. The Confederate army scrambled to find defensive positions, but could not escape Johnston’s army. The Union force crashed into the Confederates just north of Frederick, Maryland.



Johnston ordered an advance against Confederate lines. The strongest push, supported by the largest contingent of artillery, was led by General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock blasted through General Ewell’s lines. Ewell crumbled and fled back towards the lower roads in the south. Pickett was hit next as Ewell’s flank rolled around him. He had no choice but to withdraw as well. The only General to really stand his ground was Lee. Even Jubal Early, Lee’s staunchest general, was forced back. The Confederate lines rallied as Lee rode up and down the field, stopping the retreat. Ewell and Pickett solidified and held on the right side, while Lee and Early slowly began pushing Johnston and Meade back.


The Confederate lines resettled. Lee knew he had to drive the Union forces back or loose the field. He ordered General Pickett to make a dangerous charge into the Union lines to drive them back. Hancock and Grant were caught surprised by the fury of Pickett’s rush. Shouting “Up men! And to your posts! And let no man forget today, that you are from Old Virginia!”, Pickett rose and rushed against the Union lines. Causalities were horrible, but the charge knocked the Union back on their heels. It bought Lee enough time to re-asses, but Johnston was not going to fall down on the job. Instead of rushing men to aid Grant, Johnston ordered a charge against Lee. The fighting was fierce and bloody, and the Union lines were victorious.

As the Union lines blasted into the rear of Confederate forces, the Confederate lines collapsed across the front and the CSA left the field. Lee was finally handed a defeat, and Union armies had regained control of Northern Maryland. Lee advocated reforming the Confederate lines in and around Washington. Lee knew that another great victory in Washington itself would help bring the French into the war. However, President Brown would have none of it, as he wanted Lee to link up with General Jackson who was returning to Northern Virginia. Brown felt a defense of Virginia was key to surviving in the long run, because he was taken in by a new plan for the South.

stnylan: He is not the president that Jefferson Davis was, but he also has a different view on the war in general

RGB: The French sent some aid, the British decided against it. Unfortunately for the Conferedates, they need to engage the Union before there is nothing left.

Vincent Julien: Bogged down in a civil strife of its own, thank god. If 100,000 mexican infantry came rolling over the border right about now I'd be screwed.

JimboIX: Obviously

Fulcrumvale: Thanks! Welcome aboard!

Sorry for the lack of update, today is my first day back in town not suffering from a serious migraine. Update forthcoming.

Death at Smithfield
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Union forces under Johnston had recaptured Maryland, but were delayed by weather and logistics from giving chase after Lee. President Brown took the opportunity to rob Lee of 1/2 his fighting strength. Under the command of General Jackson, 30,000 Confederate troops marched south into Lynchburg to meet up with 10,000 men who remained of Braxton Bragg’s western Army. Even as Sheridan and Sherman marched into Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederate Army fell back. Troops in the far south were absent of moral, and President Brown wanted Jackson to hold the line until French money could be used to finance the war further.

Union command realized the potential for Jackson to cause problems, and so sent an army to seize Saltville. The Confederates, still a good distance away from the salt mines, marched south to drive the Union force out. The Union command had been granted to General Meade, and his 50,000 men made quick work of the countryside as they marched north to engage Jackson. That engagement began outside the small country town of Blacksburg, near a rather wealthy plantation run by the Preston family. The plantation house, known as Smithfield, served as the Confederate base of command for the battle.


Smithfield Plantation House

The Confederate army aligned across a 2 mile wide field and held firm as the Union assault came at them. Meade hoped to use his numbers to dislodge Jackson and put the army to route. He failed, and was shot from his horse during the charge. Meade’s death was but a footnote in the battle in which five generals were slain. Meade was the first, and was followed rapidly by the death of the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, and then General Wade Hampton the III, both of whom were killed when they led a cavalry counter charge against the Union lines. Finally, as the Union charge disintegrated and the Federal army retreated, General Hooker, who had taken command after Meade’s death, was killed by an exploding cannon nearby.

The result was a rebel victory, but a costly one. Of the 40,000 men Jackson had deployed, only 25,000 were in completely working shape. Of the losses, 7,000 were casualties and the rest desertions. The Union lost almost as many to fire and half again as many to desertions. Both side saw their moral plummet. But for the Union the losses could be replaced, the Confederates were not so lucky. Jackson immediately set off south after his scuffle, but the army was too tired and too disheartened to be much good. By the time he reached Carolina, the war was won. Sheridan and Sherman had pressed what Confederate armies stood against them back into the sea. When Jackson failed to arrive on time, the Confederate army of the South, commanded by Robert Ransom, surrendered to the Union.

Jackson fled South Carolina to try and reach Virginia. But a new Union offensive had taken Lynchburg without a fight and was marching on Petersburg, south of Richmond. Jackson had nowhere to turn to and his army abandoned him. His hard approach to the war and his stiff discipline was just too much for the country boys whose homes were now gone. When Jackson returned to Lee with a scant 4,000 men, Lee knew the fight was over. President Brown and his cabinet looked to flee. Brown himself took ship to France, and on January 6th, 1868 the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was trapped in a little church known as St. Stephens. Lee knew he would only bring death, and so surrendered to the Federal general Albert Johnston.


Even in surrender, the men of the Confederacy loved their “Old Virginian”

From there the Three Wars of 1866 ended quickly. Mexico, realizing that the full might of the Union could now be directed on the weakening army of the Rio Grande (which had taken large tracts of Texas) quickly capitulated. Albert Johnston marched a fresh 20,000 man army into Austin, and was greeted as a liberator. The Mexicans ceded the land south the Rio Grande, including control of Matamoros, the San Juan river and many border cities. The good news was made greater when George Armstrong Custer reappeared in Central America at head the head of a long prisoner train including untold thousands of USCA and CSA soldiers. Victory was won on all fronts seemingly overnight. And yet, the darkness of the future was not yet cleared. America had, for three years, beaten itself into near oblivion, and now someone had to pick up the pieces.