Battle of Shiloh : The Peach Orchard

Another dollop of juicy ACW goodness as Stew would say. Not sure why we played two ACW in a row but I’m glad we did. Here we played a large Shiloh scenario from This Bloody Field again by Brad Butkovich. This is a fairly big scenario so we were playing on my larger outdoor gaming table which was stretched to 12x6 feet and combining mine and Martin’s ACW collections. Breaking with tradition we chose to test out Honours of War as a ruleset for ACW. More of that a bit later perhaps.

In terms of scenario the battle for the Peach Orchard took place around 10:30 on day one of Shiloh. General Albert Johnston had thought he had turned the Union line only to find that part of Sherman’s Division Colonel Stuart’s Brigade had been detached to the far left of the Union line. This left a significant gap in the Union line which the Confederates attempted to exploit. The confederates made a frontal assault, but on their left they discovered difficult ground in the ravines bordering the Tennessee River. In the centre the Union forces pulled back to the edge of the Peach Orchard forcing the rebels to attempt to cross the large open ground of the Sarah Bell cotton field. The right wing of the Union line is bounded by the Thick trees and undergrowth of the ‘Hornet’s Nest’ which saw fighting later in the day.

The objective for the Confederates is to smash through the gap and turn the Union line, the Union army needs to get its reserves into play to fill the gap as quick as possible before Col Stuart’s brigade is wiped out.

The battle set up, 12x6 table the streams at this end of the table represent the often dry ravines and very small streams that feed into the Tennessee River all troops in this area obtained an extra cover bonus and a penalty to movement. The tents represent the union camps and any Rebel passing through a tent must test to check if they have stopped to loot breakfast. The whole of the battlefield is light woods except those designated fields and the roads.

BG John J Jackson’s Brigade from Alabama moving upto the Larkin Bell Farm, the isolated elements of Stuart’s brigade beyond the Hamburg Road

Williams Brigade lined up along the Sarah Bell’s Cotton field

The hornets nest , Union reserves unaware at this stage that a huge attack is coming

The peach orchard, currently quiet

Jackson and Chalmers Brigade’s start well but then suffer a series of bad activation rolls slowing their advance

This is compounded when troops from Jackson’s brigade stop to ransack the Union tents !

Finally they get moving again but they have lost valuable time

Firing opens up from the confederate line but Colonel Stuart following his historical counterpart pulls back into the difficult terrain to gain time

Bowen’s brigade can now be seen making its first assault on the Cotton field across the Hamburg-Purdy Road

To the west Statham is holding back

Confederates are moving in force across the main road, but whilst the Rebels have been hindered by a number of poor activation rolls 1’s the Union General has rolled several 6’s getting double moves for his reserves

The Union line in this section is complete but fairly thin ?

The confederates charge in to break the line

And have some success pushing one unit back across the cotton field

To the left musket fire opens up rather than the bayonet

But the Union troops of Williams get the best of it forcing some rebels to pull back

Fierce fighting now around the road junction where the reserves of McArthur have arrived

Around the fence at the cotton field both sides are taking a battering but nobody has the ability to capitalise on the gaps opening up

Chalmer’s brigade has now pushed through and Col Stuart’s Brigade is massively outnumbered

Union troops are being forced to retreat back across the cotton field, where they hope to reform

Again rebels charge in around the road junction but the fighting isn’t decisive

More confederate troops are arriving some from Stephens Brigade from their previous assault on the Hornets Nest

The Union have eventually lost their left flank, but the confederates have a long way to move to capitalise on the breakthrough, top right can be seen the final Union reserves no in place to hold the Union left

With no chance at the Hornets nest Stephens takes his brigade further East but it may take too long to bring them into the battle.

The confederates swarming through the ravines

Unfortunately at the Cotton field it is a different story here the Union have regrouped on the far edge making it a near impossible position for the rebels to get across, they try though 

The rebel reserves are now East of the wheatfield but still too far from the action

The rebels attempt to drive forward and sweep in from the right flank, but suffer a series of set backs. Suddenly two brigades collapse exhausted by the fighting since early morning.

Here we called the battle to the Union, they had adequately halted the Confederate attack. The confederates had the numbers but in classic wargaming style they started off with a series of failed activation rolls this just managed to slow the advance long enough for the Union to plug the main gap with reserves. An excellent battle lasting several hours.

As for Honours of War for ACW, it obviously requires very little alteration from the core rules and in its favour the ability for units to flee then reform works quite well as this often happened in ACW battles. The general mechanics worked fairly well although we needed coloured markers for each brigade we have these for SYW and it became difficult sometimes to remember which Unit was in which brigade. The main criticism are the ranges, we use the 28mm ranges for our 10 mm SYW and that works well, transferring these same ranges to 28mm ACW just didn’t work for me and if we played again I think we would increase the ranges/distances across the board. So they certainly work ok although I am not sure they add anything different to our house Bolt Action rules. Obviously one benefit is you don’t need to remove bases which means you COULD fight using these rules and 12 man units to recreate larger battles and simplify the terrain appropriately. This would work and is an interesting idea for the future.

Anyway with all this ACW I decided it was time I buy Brad’s Gettysburg scenario book and it duly arrived in the post this morning👍

Thanks as always for popping by