Maney's Brigade at Perryville

[kipt]

Maney's Brigade at Perryville, October 8, 1862

I am using Imgur to post the pictures.  Not sure if those of you in the UK can see them?  I can send a PDF to anyone that emails me.
 
In June of this year I visited the Perryville battlefield in Kentucky.  Very rolling hills but only got a very superficial sense of the battle and terrain.   At the visitor's center I bought a few books (of course). One in particular piqued my interest, "Maney's Confederate Brigade At The Battle Of Perryville".  Great tactical detail.



After reading the book I decided to make a scenario for Regimental Fire and Fury by Rich Hasenauer (my scenario is available for anyone who wants it – email me and I will send it).
 I researched the units' strengths and morale status using the above book as well as a couple of others in my library.  I made a map of the area covered by the book and then decided to make a scale relief map at 1"=1'.



Then I built the board and covered it with mats.




The picture on the right is from the opposite end.
Then terrain and troop layout.



Troops involved:
Confederates have Cheatham's division consisting of 3 brigades, each with a 4 gun battery attached.
Donalson's brigade of 5 regiments,
Stewart's brigade of 5 regiments,
and Maney's brigade also of 5 regiments.

The Union have 3 brigades and half of another.
Rousseau's division has Starkweather's brigade of 4 regiments and two batteries,
and half of Harris's brigade; two regiments that had been skirmishing prior to the start of this part of the battle.
Jackson's division has two brigades on the field, Terrill's with 4 regiments and a 10 gun battery,
and Webster's brigade of 4 regiments and a 6 gun battery. (A gun stand equals two guns, therefore a section).





3 regiments of Donalson's brigade are initially the only Rebels the Union can see. Terrill's brigade with battery in front of and moving through the woods.  This position was called the Open Knob. The large regiment in the cornfield is part of Starkweather's brigade.





Starkweather on the top and Webster's large (but green) brigade on the bottom.

The two regiments of Harris's brigade are here with skirmishers from the 33rd Ohio at the fence line. They are facing the 3 regiments of Donalson, out of the picture at the bottom.





Now that the table is set, so to speak, this is the scenario.

The battle of Perryville was the culmination of Generals Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith's invasion of Kentucky. Bragg had hoped to gather recruits from sympathetic Kentuckians and take the fight north.  Kirby Smith was to join and together outnumber and fight the Union armies.  A decided lack of recruits and lack of teamwork from Kirby Smith, decided Bragg to try and fight a portion of the Union forces.

Bragg thought a Union force coming from Louisville to Frankfort was the main Union army and ordered Kirby Smith to gather north.  Confederate general Polk was in the vicinity of Perryville and had news of what he thought were small Union troops.  Bragg told him to take care of them and then join up north.

However, the Union forces in the north were a diversion of two divisions sent by the Union commander, General Buell.  Three corps (less the 2 divisions from the 1st Corps) were actually headed in Polk's direction.  Bragg joined Polk and convinced he was only facing a small portion of the Union army, directed Polk to attack the Union left flank.  Polk directed General Cheatham (brigades led by BG Donalson, BG Stewart and BG Maney) to make the attack.  Cheatham discovered that the Union left flank was farther north than first supposed and shifted his brigades north.
Cheatham's brigades hit the Union 1st Corps, and due to acoustic shadow, the other two Union Corps essentially did not get involved in the fight. The Union 1st Corps was defeated and fell back about a mile.  Cheatham's division, while victorious, was spent.

Bragg was also unaware until late in the day that the main Union army was nearby. The Union 2nd Corps had a brigade that did advance to Perryville which, along with Wheeler's Confederate cavalry on the left, convinced Bragg that the Union army was here and not up north.  While a Confederate tactical victory, Bragg decided to retreat back into Tennessee, giving the Union, and President Lincoln, a much needed strategic victory.

The Scenario
The time is 2:15. General Cheatham has just ordered Donalson's brigade to attack the Union battery on the far hill (Harris's battery is all that Cheatham can see).  However, as Donalson moves forward he receives artillery fire off to his right flank and Cheatham realizes the Union left flank extends farther than at first thought.  He then orders Maney's and Stewart's brigades to attack.  The attack goes against the Union 1st Corps divisions of Jackson and Rousseau. Confederates move first: however, before moving 3 Union units get to fire at the 16th TN; the skirmishers from the 33rd OH, Harris battery and those of Parson's battery that can bear.  Combined fire.

And the game starts. The 16th TN with brave Colonel Savage, leading, takes the combined fire as described and is disordered.  Shaking off the disorder Donalson advances against the fenceline (top of the picture).





Pushing back the skirmishers Donalson and the Harris demi brigade fought back and forth during the entire combats happening to their right. A couple of turns later the remainder of Donalson's brigade arrived with its attached battery and formed up near the beech copse.



Meanwhile Maney's brigade appeared to the left front of the Union position at the Open Knob and immediately advanced to the snake rail fence line. (This fence area was described as overgrown with brambles, so I tried to represent that).
Terrill's Union brigade decided not to wait on the Knob position and immediately moved forward to meet the rebels.






Brave action, but the Union attack was repulsed by Maney's left hand regiments.  The remainder of his brigade attacked the Union battery (Parson's battery which was very green) and pushed beyond the Union left flank.




 
The 21st Wisconsin (part of Starkweather's brigade) that was in the cornfield behind Terrill broke when attacked as did the 123rd Illinois of Terrill's, and can be seen in the left picture above the road.
Stewart's Confederate brigade came on board between Donalson and Maney and moved toward the woods in the middle of the board, passing through the open beech woods.



In the woods they met units of Starkweather's brigade.  The fighting in the woods lasted over two hours, with a heroic stand by the 24th Illinois repulsing 4 attacks by multiple rebel regiments.  A slow retreat back up the ravine.




 
Meanwhile Webster's large but green brigade was slowly moving forward.



They held the Union right flank the entire game, somewhat battered but they always rallied and presented a strong front. The picture below shows their position at the end, with one regiment broken but the other three holding steady.



Maney's brigade continued toward Starkweather's artillery postion of two batteries and disloged them, gaining the hill the guns were on.



 
At the same time half of Starkweather's brigade was pushed southwest (the right side of the board from the rebel prespective).



Hovering off the board on this side was the cavalry brigade of Colonel John Wharton.  In the scenario there is a provision that if the rebels get within 12" of Starkweather's battery, the 8th Texas cavalry with Col Wharton appears on the table.  Historically the cavalry took fire from the Union artillery and decided to not stick around.  Same in the game; they did nothing. (More of a force in being, although the Union did not heed the fact that cavalry were off to their left flank, which was my intention when writing the scenario.  I thought the Union would watch that flank just in case, however, they did not know if cavalry would appear.) 

So when this group of Starkweather routed off the board I decided that Wharton's brigade had a great haul of prisoners.

Meanwhile,one of Donalson's regiments, the 8th Tennessee, pushed through the cornfield and threatened the Union right, while the rest of the brigade fought Harris's two regiments.

As the 8th TN pushed forward, the hard fighting 24th Illinois emerged from the fight in the wooded ravine, about faced and fired into the rear of the 8th TN.  The Union rifle muskets must have been fouled from all the fighting in the woods as the shot produced nothing!







Maney's regiments, after pushing Starkweather off the board, continued through the cornfield to threaten, and ultimately gain the last artillery position where Webster's battery had been posted.




 
The Union guns were driven off as Maney's regiments converged on the hill.  Only Webster's large green brigade was left, but with rebels on their left flank.



This was the end of the 11th turn.  Initially 3 Confederate players and 5 Union players started the game and went through 6 turns.  One of the Confederates was my houseguest for two weeks and he and I played the remainder of the turns, 7 through 11.  Turn 12 starts a twilight turn where visibility is reduced, so we stopped there.

Points were awarded for each artillery position, and the Confederates took all three.  Also a point was given for causing greater casualties; also going to the Confederates.  This is a picture of the losses when we quit. Confederates on the bottom.



So the game ended substantially as did the real battle.  The Confederates got close to the road going off the board at the Union end.  If this had been taken it would have cut off the Union 1st Corps from the remainder of the army and would have been in danger of surrendering.

A couple of things to notice.  There was only one commander fatality and that was BG Stewart.  Terrill had a bullet through his clothing and was unhorsed at the end.  In the actual battle Terrill, Jackson and Webster were killed or mortally wounded.

In this set of rules when a 10 is rolled, a unit goes low on ammunition, but only on the second roll.  So we used a blue chit for the first 10 and a red chit for low on ammo on the second roll of 10.

When a stand is eliminated I put down a casualty figure.  My stands have 4 figures so roughly 1 casualty stand represents 10 dead or missing, the other 30 being wounded. I wanted to see how this battle stacked up against the actual fight.
Brigade              stand losses               Actual casualties
Donalson      17 (so 170 dead and            74 kia & mia, 300 wia,
         missing, total 680 casualties)              total 374 casualties

Stewart              8 (80 dead and missing,                 85 kia & mia, 336 wia,
         total 320 casualties)            total 421 casualties

Maney         19 (190 dead and missing         190 kia & mia, 580 wia
         total 760 casualties)            total 770 casualties)
So it sort of worked for Maney's brigade.  I didn't do this for the Union.

The battlefield after the armies have moved on.















A couple of pictures showing the rolling terrain.

[pierre the shy]

outstanding Kipt, your attention to detail is amazing 

Your post is a model of how to translate (part of) a historical battle into a tabletop refight.

[Steve J]

Images not viewable in the UK . One big advantage of a Blog is it can be viewed globally with no problems (famous last words !).

[kipt]

I post a link to the Pendraken site on the Regimental Fire and Fury forum.  I wonder if you went there you could "back door" and see the pictures?

The forum is in the FireandFury.com site.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Great write up, even if I can't see the pictures.

[Ben Waterhouse]

Unfortunately, I cant see a thing in this dystopian land.

[Steve J]

No joy with the F&F site either .

[kipt]

Darn.  I was hoping you could see it through the F&F site.

I can send a PDF, perhaps through the moderator if I can get emails from those that want to see it.