First Day of Gettysburg July 1, 1863

 

ACW figures from the collection of the late Ian Smith
This is one of the best photos that I've seen of ANY wargame figures.

Today marks the anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1, 1863. Most of you know the background story so I'm not going to go into the details of the battle. Suffice to say that this was an encounter battle between the Confederate division of General Henry Heth and the Union cavalry forces commanded by Major General John Buford. Buford's eye for good defensive ground saw him deploying his dismounted cavalry atop of McPherson's Ridge, just to the west of the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Buford held off numerous attacks from Heth's Confederates until elements of the Union First Corps arrived to take over the fight.

Later in the day other Confederate divisions arrived from the north, positioning them to threaten the McPherson's Ridge battle line. The Union forces fell back towards the town of Gettysburg, first to the next ridge, Seminary Ridge, and then ending the day positioned on Cemetery Ridge. It was at the latter site that days two and three resumed the battle, which ended as a decisive Union victory and arguably changed the tide of the war in favor of the Union armies.

I have visited Gettysburg more times than I have fingers and toes to count them. I usually visit the battlefield when I go to Historicon in nearby Lancaster, Pennsylvania (just one hour's drive). In 2021 I had the honor of taking my daughter to the battlefield for her first visit and she was thrilled by her visit to the site. It makes a dad proud. So here a couple of the pictures that I took in 2021 of McPherson's Ridge.

McPherson's Barn on McPherson's Ridge - First Day of Gettysburg

Statue honoring Union cavalry general John Buford on McPherson's Ridge

By the way, Fife and Drum Miniatures engaged Richard Ansell to start an ACW figure range that was short circuited by his untimely passing away. Richard made 8 Union and 8 Confederate figures in skirmishing poses. I never put the figures up for sale on the Fife and Drum webstore because of the incompleteness of the range. I have all of Richard's dollies for figure poses as well as the bits for the  weapons and heads. If I were to find a figure sculptor who could make the figures in Richard's style then I would continue the range, or perhaps someone else would like to purchase the moulds and production rights and carry on with a range that would have been breath taking had time and fate allowed.

Fife and Drum Union figures skirmishing.

Fife and Drum Confederate soldiers skirmishing.

Der Alte Fritz, Himself

I find the first day of Gettysburg to be the most interesting of the three days' battles given its nature as an encounter battle scenario. I used to have a large 28mm ACW collection centered around the Union First Corps and Heth's Confederate division using a 1:10 figure to man ratio. It was quite something to behold. It used a variety of figures in each unit: Connoisseur, the original Dave Alsop sculpted Old Glory figures, Eagle Miniatures, some of the old Front Rank figures, Hinchcliffe, Dixon and others. I always felt that the ACW lended itself well to mixing up different figures from different figure ranges into the same unit. It gave the wargame unit a diverse individualistic appearance, a far cry from today's preference for using figures all from the same manufacturer.

I don't game ACW anymore, but it is an historical period that I like nonetheless.