Rolling Thunder: Confederate Artillery Barrage Prior to Pickett's Charge

 

Confederate artillery opens fire prior to Pickett's Charge

We are getting closer and closer to the Little Wars war game convention. The painting of figures is going well, having twelve regiments of 30 figures per side so far. Methinks it is time to shift my attention to building the necessary terrain items (largely the Emmitsburg Road and its post and rail fences).

Here are three pictures of the massive Confederate artillery grand battery that will support General Pickett's division during the assault on Cemetery Hill. Each side will have six batteries comprised of two cannon models each. The Confederate batteries will have one 12-pound Napoleon and one 3-inch ordnance rifle because the Confederates tended to mix up different types of guns in a battery of six guns. This could create some problems with the resupply of the guns during the battle.

Union artillery, on the other hand, was organized with their batteries all having the same kind of cannon. So I will have some batteries comprised of two Napoleons and others with two rifled artillery.

In the foreground, one Confederate battery with one rifle and one Napoleon.

Close up view of a 10-pound Parrot rifled cannon near the fence and a 12-pound Napoleon in the foreground.

A view of the entire Confederate artillery at Pickett's Charge.

My game table currently has the forces set out for a generic battle as this is an easy way to store the finished units (on the tabletop) and watch the armies grow. Over the next week or so I will remove all of the figures from the table (ugh!) and then place foam board hills underneath the Cigar Box Battle Mats that I am using for my games. The hills will represent Cemetery Ridge on the Union side of the table and Seminary Ridge on the Confederate side of the table. Appropriate trees, foliage and fences/wall will be added.

The next step is to create the Emmitsburg Road. The road sort of runs diagonally between the two ridges and I estimate that I will need 18 feet of road. This implies that I will need 36 feet of post and rail fences. Yikes!!!!! The road pieces will be fairly easy to make, but the post and rail fences are going to be a major terrain building project. I have some plastic fences made by Marx and some stone wall with wood cross and rail pieces above the stone wall. The latter are made by BMC or Americana. These may have to do for the Little Wars game as time is running short. I should be able to make all of the roadway fencing in time for Historicon in July.