From: timothy@vansant.gsfc.nasa.gov (Timothy Van Sant)
Subject: The Fog of War and McClellan (Was Re: A Gleam of Bayonets)
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 17:33:35 GMT

In article <_8rjxgk@lynx.unm.edu> randym@triton.unm.edu writes:
> In article <8APR199217314326@vxcrna.cern.ch> casper@vxcrna.cern.ch  
(CASPER,DAVI./PPE) writes:
> >
> >I wonder 1) if this Union attack can be dealt with somehow and 2) if it  
was
> >ever considered in the historical battle.
> >
> Yes these problems you describe happen in most Antietam games. Some  
thoughts
> on the 2) part of your question:
> 
> A. What you are dealing with is an attempt to recreate the mindset of  
the
> opposing generals (with the command limits, especially on the Union  
player).
> I do not know of ANYONE, even McClellans biographers, who have been able  
to
> do this. McClellans own accounts of the battle do not compare well with  
other
> accounts - we simply do not know what he was really up to. Read Stephen  
Sears
> biography of Little Mac: even he cannot explain what was going on, other  
than
> say that McClellan was having problems with command (the Burnside/Cox  
squabble,
> the geriatric Mansfield, Hooker getting wounded, etc.). We know Lee  
would not
> have fought at Antietam, except that McClellan was in command, and Lee  
"knew"
> what Mac would do. Well, in any boardgame of the battle, Mac isn't in  
command,
> you are...so the designers must put restrictions on what the Union  
player can
> do, otherwise the Confederates are crushed rather quickly.
> 
> B. So, the Union player looks at the map, and sees the weakness of the  
forces
> around Nicodemus Hill. He throws Hookers Corps towards them, and tries  
to break
> the Confederate line. What's wrong with this picture? Well, the reason  
that
> McClellan never considered it was that he did not have the "eye in the  
sky"
> advantage that the wargamer has. He has no real idea of the deployment  
of
> the rebel forces, other that that Jackson's force is on the northern  
flank.
> McClellan has a pretty good idea of the O.B. for the rebel forces (down  
to
> the regiment) BUT has severely overestimated the SIZE of each unit. He  
is 
> still basing his unit strength analysis on early 1862 ration counts, in
> which each regiment has a paper strength of between 700-1000 men. He  
counts 
> his own force, and considers that he might be outnumbered, otherwise why  
would
> Lee have stayed and offered battle? But the wargamer knows better - he  
has an
> infallible order-of-battle written in the game rules. He knows the  
score, 
> while the historical commander didn't. This is a tremendous advantage. I
> feel that any game that attempts to simulate a Civil War battle SHOULD  
put
> the gamer into the historical mindset of the commanders, INCLUDING the 
> "fog of war" 

McClellan is generally credited with an excellent administrative sense but  
(by all accounts I'm aware of) he *must* be termed an abysmal failure as a   
field commander.  One of the reasons he knew so little of the Confederate  
positions and numbers was because he had not ordered *any* reconnaisance  
whatsoever.  Moreover his cavalry, the so-called "eyes and ears" of armies  
of this period, was stationed smack in the middle of the Union line where  
it was least useful (except perhaps as a McClellan bodyguard).  Didn't he  
have to be talked out of cavalry charge of the Confederate center a la  
Austerlitz late in the day of the battle? 

His intelligence estimates were self-serving in the extreme, as were his  
many rationalizations for slow action.  I haven't read Sears' biography of  
Little Mac, but in Sears' "Landscape Turned Red", he comes very close to  
saying that McClellan's conduct during war was tied to his feelings about  
the politics of the North-South dispute.  He didn't want to wage all-out  
war on the Confederacy (or "destructive war" as Royster terms it in his  
recent book about Jackson and Sherman).  He hadn't realized that this  
level of conflict was required for the Union to be saved, or more likely,  
he was unwilling to pay this price to save the Union.

which is lacking in most boardgames. I will not say that computer
> games, including those of SSI, are really superior to traditional  
boardgames 
> BUT - try playing SSI's Gettysburg or Antietam with the limited  
intelligence
> and variable reinforcements. To look at a screen that shows your forces,  
and
> only those of the enemy that are in a line-of-sight, and to not know  
what
> is behind that treeline, is a step closer to recreating the mindset of  
the
> commander. Being a veteran of many JOHNNY REB miniatures games, I can  
tell
> you that playing with limited intelligence and an umpire is a far step
> closer to the "real thing" than any current boardgame. We may criticize

I don't know much about the computer games or miniature rules you mention.   
You're absolutely dead on here though.  One shouldn't think that these  
games ever really put you in a position similar to that faced by the  
actual leaders.  I've yet to find a computer game which has the richness  
and flavor that are present in my favorite boardgames.  This may be an  
uninformed prejudice though.  I would like to see a computer-aided  
boardgame which would inject some of the fog of war yet preserve the  
personal aspect of having a human opponent (so critical in the Antietam  
campaign).

> McClellan for not ending the war in one afternoon, but could we have  
really
> done any better? Probably not.
> 

One might suppose that his conduct of the actual one-day battle was  
passable.  (IMHO, his coordination of the Union attacks was bad even by  
ACW standards!)  But his conduct of the campaign as a whole was terrible.   
Given that he stumbled upon a copy of the Confederate plans for taking  
Harper's Ferry, revealing that Lee had divided his force, he could have  
been much more aggressive in seeking out portions of the AoNV to defeat in  
detail.  He also wasted an entire day before the actual battle during  
which the bulk of Jackson's men were still at Harper's Ferry.

Tim Van Sant				
E-mail:timothy@vansant.gsfc.nasa.gov	(accepts NeXTmail)

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