Sharp Practice ACW Along the Combahee

We are off to June 1863 and the Low Country of South Carolina at Steel Lard 2023 via Patriot Games Sheffield. The Union have occupied the coastal port of Beaufort (pronounced bewfort as in kew) and raised a battalion (the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers) from liberated slaves. A force has sailed along the coast to the rice plantations by the Combahee river. Their mission; liberate the local labour force and do as much damage as possible.

The following map should help but note that it is a proposed development from 1877. In 1863 the railroad from Yemassee to Port Royal does not exist, nor does the spur to Bluffton, Port Royal itself is little more than a place to unload ships. The Savannah Charlestown rail road was built and in use. The only place one might call a town is Beaufort.

This is rice country, no cotton for a long way. The rice fields are sunken and surrounded by ditches and banks to allow water to flow into the fields and keep it there. Here are the remains of a rice field in Sheldon South Carolina. It is on the map but you need to look hard; between Yemassee and Gardens Corner. Key features are large, flat open fields with areas of dense forest surrounding them.

Keeping the fields in action requires maintaining the channels and paddles that surround the fields. Rice cultivation at the time was very labour intensive; overcome by the use of large numbers of slaves.

This illustration from Harpers Weeky dates to about 1 month after the raids. There is no certainty that the artist was physically present but the impression looks reasonable.

In reality the Confederates tried to put up a fight but were massively outnumbered and could do little to prevent the destruction of buildings and loss of hundreds of slaves. The Sharp Practice game at Steel Lard is a bathtub approach with the key events and places scaled into a smaller area. Although this is a battle setting winning is based on rescuing slaves and saving white plantation owners and their houses.

This is the pre-game set up with the Union gunboat just cruising into view.

A small force of Confederate skirmishers spend the game in the reeds by the river at the bottom of the battlefield. They inflict disproportionate casualties on the Union forces although they are probably being bitten raw that close to the river. They are protecting General Pickett who had been out for a drive in his carriage. Ideally he needed to get back through the plantation and away but the road was blocked by fighting.

Deployment is based on chit pull and swiftly sees the battlefield swarming in Union troops and only a smattering of Confederates. The Negro 2nd South Carolina Volunteers should be in red trousers and will all be a bit warm with those coats in June. The Union also have some white skirmishers and white crew on the gunboat (the Union army was still segregated until 1948).

A Confederate cavalry force arrives and prepares to rescue General Pickett. Other forces form a line to protect the plantation. The plantation owner heads towards them but with glacial speed. Clearly too much port and not enough exercise.

The cavalry charge falters and gets shot up. A victim of the activation system. With improbable luck they could have ridden down the Union skirmishers and rode back with General Pickett.

The end of the game sees the Union rescuing the slaves while the plantation owner and General Pickett are still in the thick of it. Honourable mention to the CSA gun crew who rode up, deployed, shot off a devastating round of canister then saddled up and rode off again.

The whole game took 3 hours with 4 players and an umpire. It could have run for a few more turns and was still anybody’s game although a Union win when we called it. The in-play events, some scripted, some random certainly made the gameplay flow.