ACW: Cold Harbor - more than just a frontal assault

My previous post reported on our game of the 1862 battle of Seven Pines / Fair Oaks. That took place just across the Chickahominy from the battlefield that is the subject of this post: Cold Harbor (1864).

The background to the Cold Harbor battle is this. At the end of May 1864, Grant's Overland Campaign was stalled in front of Lee's formidable defences behind the North Anna river. After some inconclusive skirmishes dignified with the name of the Battle of North Anna, Grant decided to sidestep with a big left hook. Lee was expecting this, but Grant achieved some surprise by crossing the Pamunkey river further east than he anticipated. Nevertheless, Lee reacted quickly and established a defensive line around the Totopotomoy creek. Over several days, Grant and Meade attempted an alternating succession of frontal assaults and left or right outflanking moves, while Lee scrambled to plug gaps and either dig in or counterattack. The final Union assault at Cold Harbor was an assault too many and was bloodily repulsed. Nine days later, Grant upped sticks, marched away across the James River, and moved his strategic point of attack to Petersburg.

Unlike Seven Pines, Cold Harbor doesn't seem to be wargamed often. (Honorable exception being Greg Wagman, who's done it with his Altar of Freedom ruleset here.) Could that be because it is perceived as a grim, one-sided, misguided, failed frontal assault that cost the Union 4,000+ casualties in half an hour? Last year I devoted one of my "Reflections on Wargaming" essays to the question of whether frontally assaulting redoubts can make a good game. The answer was a qualified 'yes', but it needs some thoughtful scenario design to give both sides enough interesting things to do.

For Cold Harbor, my approach was not to limit the game to the climactic couple of days of frontal assaults, but to exploit BBB's elastic scale and stretch it to include all six days of action between the Pamunkey and the Chickahominy leading up to the final assaults. Rather than have five Night Intervals, I allowed just two to represent major strategic redeployment phases during the operation. I made the victory conditions revolve around the Union commanding crossings over the Chickahominy on the way to Richmond, while keeping its own line-of-communications bridges over the Pamunkey secure.

I took a ton of photos this time. I've selected and annotated about 20 below. If you don't have time or inclination to admire all of these, you might want to skip to the end to read some reflections prompted by the game.

First, some eternal military wisdom, presumably from Sun Tzu:

OK, back to more serious noodle-free matters, starting with a plan view of the whole battlefield to get you oriented:

This depicts a 26x18km stretch of country between the Pamunkey (top edge) and the Chickahominy (bottom edge). It's a bit hard to see the woods for the trees ... basically the irregular green-chalked shapes are open farmland, with a lot of woods in between, cris-crossed by a network of roads. Buildings are landmarks but not significant built-up areas. Because of the large ground scale and close country, I limited rifle range to 3" and artillery to 6".

The Union masses are the dark bases in the NW corner. They have the option to cross further east, but with some risk of delay. Mark and Matt as the Union commanders declined that and opted instead for the guaranteed, concentrated bludgeon, leaving just a couple of cavalry units to threaten the Confederate right flank.

The Confederates are in their historical starting positions, grouped in a rough central triangle where Lee held them until he could divine where the true threat was. Crispin and I commanded the Confederates. (Crispin also created the terrain, provided the armies - 6mm Baccus figures - and hosted the game.)

How long can the Confederate cavalry screen in front of Littlepage Bridge hold up the Federals?

Lee's men scramble to respond to the massive threat to their left. The cavalry have managed to fall back and throw up breastworks. They're already backed up by some of Hill's corps doing likewise. (The scenario allows troops to dig in.) Unfortunately, Early is going to be late ...

A different story on the right. Hardly any Union at all - just some cavalry at the Dabney Ferry on the Pamunkey (top left) and at top right on the road from Old Church to Cold Harbor. Unfortunately this is enough to distract most of Anderson's corps to guard New Cold Harbor (right centre) and screen the Pamunkey.

The main battle develops on the left. The Confederate cavalry survives a massed Union assault and falls back on its friends. Union columns probe left and right as the blue horde seeks to spread out into a battle line. Determined rebs await behind their hasty fortifications. (Away on the right wing, minor fencing continues.)

As we approach the first Night Interval (end of Turn 4), combat becomes intense. In battering at the front of the Confederate left wing, a Union division has exposed its flank to Confederate counterattack (the 'L' of CSA troops left of pic). This will go badly for the bluebellies. However, right of pic, a Union threat is developing against the thinly guarded rebel centre. (Again, the relatively quiet rebel right wing is not shown here.)

Situation at first Night Interval. Both sides have received reinforcements. 'Baldy' Smith's XVIII Cps has landed at Dabney Ferry to extend the Union left (top right of pic), while the Confederates have scraped together miscellaneous units from Richmond and beyond to shore up their own left. Just out of shot to the right, that one Union cavalry division is still loitering, threatening to seize either Old or New Cold Harbor and drawing off Confederate units to protect them. Apart from that - it's a Thin Grey Line facing an awful lot of Yankees.

Part 2 starts with a bang. The Union weights its right to pound the rebel defences in front of Winston's Bridge, only to be repelled and then counterattacked in flank ...

... while something very similar happens against the Confederate centre left, east of McKenzie's Corner. The Union hammers away against the Confederate left wing for three turns with little reward.

However, war has broken out in earnest on the Confederate right. Two Union divisions smash through in the centre and then assault a desperate blocking attempt by Confederate cavalry (lower left) covering Mechanicsville (out of shot beyond lower left corner) . The first of several more Union divisions are emerging from the woods along the top edge and will drive back the few Confederate defenders in that sector and advance towards Cold Harbor (lower right). And those Union cavalry are still hanging around out east.

Close-up of that Union assault on Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry. They survived! But had to quit the position.

The second Night Interval has been and gone. No reinforcements this time, just some frantic shuffling of units to reinforce success or fill holes. Turn 8 now, and it's the same story as before as the Union right keeps bashing its head against a grey wall.

On the opposite wing, Lee has found one of his best divisions from somewhere to smash into that dangerous Union incursion in the centre (left of pic). That will prove enough to thwart it. But look at that lone artillery unit guarding New Cold Harbor (lower right edge) and the Union cavalry above it.

The Union cavalrymen decide it's now or never. Sabres flashing, they charge the Confederate guns! Will this be their moment? Will they capture that white Objective marker? No - the gunners hold their nerve; the cavalry is repulsed.

"Here they come agin, boys!" The last couple of turns see more waves of general assault against the Confederate left, mostly with the same lack of result. However, watch the unit in the centre with the red counter (half-strength artillery unit) and the black counter (infantry low on ammo) along with Bobby Lee's command stand (the cavalry base behind it). More about that soon.

Close-up of some of those massed assaults. Ever felt outnumbered?

See Lee flee! That unit with the low ammo? On the last turn, it cracked under the pressure, abandoned its earthworks, lost its guns, and retreated across the Chickahominy, taking General Lee with it. Too little too late for the Union, though, as there wasn't time to follow up and capture the bridge.

Let's finish with a couple of shots from the Union point of view:

The Confederate right is looking very ragged and threadbare. Baldy Smith's men have breached it thoroughly (from the lower right of pic) and are advancing into undefended open country, but too late to reach the objectives near the Chickahominy. Top left, the Union cavalry makes one last charge and expires.

The Confederate left isn't in great shape either, that line looking seriously dented and buckled in places. However, it has held for just long enough to claim victory.

The butcher's bill: at 2,000 men per base, that's a lot of Union casualties. (The Confederate pile was much smaller.) Of course, most of these 36,000 aren't dead or wounded - a lot of them are just seriously demotivated - but it's sanguinary enough to do justice to the historical losses of around 13,000.

Reflections:

Don't Try to be Too Clever, Part I: Victory Conditions. Usually, BBB scenarios feature half a dozen or so objective locations, mostly spread across the middle of the table (typically representing the extent to which an attacker has or hasn't breached, broken or outflanked a defender's line) with maybe a couple near one or both sides' baselines to represent lines of communications. This time I opted simply for river crossings or locations commanding them: four along the Chickahominy (the Confederate edge) and two on the Pamunkey (the Union edge). This didn't really work as there was little prospect of the rebs threatening the Union edge, while the Union got no reward for getting close. The guys rightly recommended I revert to a more normal format with intermediate objectives. Second draft will do this and stick to what we know works.

Don't Try to be Too Clever, Part II: Union Entry Points. I tried to recreate the doubt in Lee's mind by recreating Grant's options of where to cross. However, the way I did this just made crossing upriver a much better idea than the historical crossings further down (and I don't think this was really because we're smarter than Grant). I'm going to redraft it so that most of the Union forces must arrive via one of the two main historical crossings, while giving the US players free choice over just one corps. That should be limited enough to keep it simple for the players, while still allowing some flexibility for cunning plans.

The Bludgeon and the Rapier. While those major strategic questions need tweaking, the lower-level stuff felt good: the balance of forces, the troop ratings, the terrain, the limited LOS. It produced the right tactical feel, with the two sides having to play it differently. The Union, with over 50% numerical advantage but needing to advance, was constantly trying to pummel and envelop; the Confederates, with a quality advantage but barely enough units to hold the line, had to choose judiciously when and where to counterattack. It also produced a well balanced game overall (VPs aside) and was close enough to the historical result in terms of casualties inflicted and ground taken.

Wargame or Boardgame? People occasionally say that once a tabletop game gets to this ground and troop scale, you might as well play a boardgame with counters. I disagree. I think the format of this scenario (and others at a similar scale - thinking here of Chancellorsville or Spotsylvania, and hoping to repeat it for the Seven Days Battles and for Petersburg) lets it straddle the line between tactical and operational level. The Night Intervals, with a scenario rule for strategic redeployment, brings in those large operational decisions; but then the regular turns in between are normal tactical tabletop wargaming. It works for us, anyway.