"What is the appeal of ACW to non-Americans?" Topic

Please understand that I'm not trying to discredit ACW wargaming or anything; I'm simply curious.

I'm currently writing up an article to promote historical wargaming in my country (where only a minority speaks English), explaining each of the popular eras (i.e. Ancients, Medieval, Napoleonic, WW1, WW2). But I'm having some difficulty with ACW since it was never "my period".

For Americans, I understand that ACW was an essential part of the national history that shaped the U.S.A of today.

But I've noticed that there are quire a number of non-Americans who are avid ACW players.

What would be the appeal of ACW to foreigners?

I guess for the same reason I am interested in the Great Italian Wars despite not being Italian, French, Spanish or Austrian. Or great for that matter.

it was a very important conflict, a turning point in modern warfare. It had major consequences militarily, politically and historically. Many first hand accounts survive, which creates interest in itself.

From a gaming pov, there were large set-piece battles that are still possible to depict on a table, as well as innumerable smaller actions, it had comparable forces on each side, either of which stands a chance of winning, battles typically had a fair bit of interesting terrain that looks good on a table, and there is a lot of information and reference readily available.

What's not to like?

PM sent…let me know if I can be of further service….

Thanks for your very helpful inputs, Murphy and Whatisitgood4atwork.

Maybe I should try watching some critically acclaimed ACW movies (Gods & Generals, Gettysburg, etc) to get a better feel of it.

It sure is hard to write passionately about something unless you're passionate about it.

I cant speak for any one else but while not my preferred period it has certain appeal. There is a certain degree of equality in sides, they fought with similar weapons, in similar styles. There are many battles in the period from large to small. One of the best appeals is the wealth of information.

The interaction of river combat with land combat. There is a lot of colourfull characters, weird and interesting campaigns. As well as some decent movies to get a degree of "feel".

As an Australian pretty much all periods are "foreign". Any period I choose would require me to find something other then my own nationality to attract me. Why would this be different for anyone doing any period? How would anyone ever do Fantasy or Sc-Fi?

"Gettysburg"-yes

"Gods and Generals"- only watch the battle scenes.

Add "Glory" for a must watch.

That should be good for an understanding. Anything more and you might go nuts.

Mark

I think there is also an element of romantic appeal through the notion of the 'Lost Cause'. The actual, history of this is dodgy in the extreme, but the facts have never stood in the way of either popular belief or appeal.

Also watch "Ride with the Devil", very good film.

For me the appeal is basically watching the Ken Burns doco series with my father when I was a teenager. Fell in love at university with my studies. It's always impressed me that the two major english speaking civil wars (English and American) settled fairly high concept political questions about the types of government each nation wished to pursue. Speaks highly of how seriously the english speaking world takes issues of democracy, representation etc.

Plus Shelby Foote. One read of him and how can you not be hooked???

For me it goes back to the "Tuniques Bleues" comic, about the adventures of two cavalrymen in the civil war. Funny and quite well done. It inspired me to know more about it.

Effectivly, i'm French and i play ACW in 28mm for many year (it's my greatest collection of models !) in i wrote a WAB addaptation (published in the #80 of he french magazine Vae Victis)
Why this interest for this WAR ?
Peharps because he talk about a lost and desesperate cause, or this war mixed horror and romantism, and was the transition between napoléonic wars (i play WAB napoleonic too) and modern wafare.
Uniforms (hi colors zouaves,"camo" sharpshooters, butternut and civil effect) , modern weapon and horses on the same battlefied are intersting.
And perharps because it's the last war for the one regiments g to attack with colors and musician.

I discussed this with an ACW playing friend he put it (rather cynically I feel) that it was a good gaming period to do because he didn't like painting cavalry and there wasn't many in the ACW. As a non-American he couldn't give a monkeys who won and didn't care how many of them died on his model battlefield and finally both sides are very easy to paint up with that useful duality of uniform but casualness in dress.

My own view is that it's more to do with the popularity of all things American and the widespread availability of information and figures. Also I like the terrain.

I am about to start my own ACW project soon in 10mm.

"And perharps because it's the last war for the one regiments g to attack with colors and musician"

Not quite, Franco Prussian War 1870, a favourite period for me and I am niether French or German!

With the ACW there is plenty of scope for running interesting campaigns,

Tally Ho!

The geography has cool names : Chickahominy, Chattanooga, Shenandoah, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Potomac, Appomattox, Rappahannock etc.

we've had a similar discussion 2 years ago TMP link

we've had a similar discussion 2 years ago

Ah, thanks for that link, nikola. Lots of interesting discussions in there.

I wasn't around back then, and TMP's search function isn't good for searching generic terms like "appeal" and "interest".

I think I'll focus my article on the point that ACW is a logical and transitional period in terms of warfare, between the "Horse & Musket" era and the "Automatic Rifles & Tanks" era.

I think the oriigns of the interest in the UK must be with the old Airfix Union and Confederate figures which sparked a lot of gamers to read up on the period

Despite being British I've always been interested in the ACW. I think the blame lies in a combination of Airfix figures, as mentioned by Lowtardog, and the Civil War bubblegum cards that we avidly collected in primary school: link

It was the first wargame I ever played using plastic Airfix figures over a green sheet with chalk roads, green felt cut-out woods and railway buildings.

Fantastic!!!!!!

Tony
dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com

I've always felt (not an original thought, but I can't remember who to credit it to….) that a pretty major factor is that it's pretty much the only major war in 300 years where both sides' primary sources are written in English….

Lots of dead Americans!

Joke!

For me as a new convert its about the politics, noth American and wider, the huge battles and campaigns and the fact that theres photograpgic sources. 50 years previous and we are limited to sketches and artists impressions (Napoleonics my main love) but with the ACW theres photos of the soliders, generals, and battlefields. Its very inspiring and makes it feel very real.

I agree with Seratonin – Almost the first accessible war because of the huge quantity of photographs and first hand accounts. Possibly the first war where a majority of the combatants were literate (at all ranks).

It is vast, it has everything from raw volunteers at the beginning to grizzled veterans later on and even Indians. Good range of weapons and tactics.

It is also, in my opinion, a war with very little in the way of atrocities (I know about Quantrail and Andersonville but in comparison with what has gone on in other wars …). I think that this makes it more "acceptable" than many other conflicts.

ACW was also my first painted army 35 years ago (Airfix) :-)

Oh yeah, and as a kid I had a load of Britains ACW toy soldiers. The cavalry were excellent.

It is a good question. While I can see non-Americans playing games in the ACW (all it takes is the figures, after all) what I can't figure out is all those Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans and Australians travelling thousands of miles to participate in our ACW reenactments! Clearly, the interest goes very deep for some people.

You raise an interesting question, whose first cousin would be, "why are so many non-Europeans interested in the Napoleanic Wars"?

There are a couple of reasons, as noted above:

- big war, lots of scope for battles and campaigns

- very well documented war, lots of books/images/web-sites

- for those old dogs among us, some of the first Airfix figs were Union infantry, Confederate infantry and that unbelievably good ACW artillery set in the funny red-brown colour, so it was the wargaming choice of our youth

- the uniforms are relatively simple and surprisingly attractive, especially the Union blues for some strange reason

- colourful historical figures (Grant, Lee, etc.) about whom much myth and writing has occured

- lots of non-Americans in the war (40,000 Canadian, 10,000 plus Irish, Scots, Brits, even the odd Russian)

- for me, it was all that plus finding out my great-grandfather (who, like most of my extended family, actually was American) was in it

I guess for the same reasons Americans play Napoleonics.

Or the ECW, Colonial Sudan, or the Zulu War, or heck, for that matter even Fantasy or SF games. None of us have ever lived in Middle Earth or the Warhammer universes and those games are still interesting and fun (for me, at least).

Interest can turn up in any number of places, and then it's all about buying and painting the figures and playing games.

It is the same appeal as the Napoleonics, 7YW, ECW and Thirty Years war and other eras are to Americans. It is part of the general interest most historical gamers have in all eras of history.

Airfix toy soldiers, Ladybird books, Look and Learn Magazine, western movies and the Scholastic ACW Poster I had hanging on my bedroom wall when I was 10.

One other reason I would give. Because it it a civil war.
For some reason we find them fascinating. English Civil War is popular, Wars of the Roses, Spanish Civil War, Russian Civil War all are very popular areas to game.

I blame Hollywood!

I think it is because of the varied terrain, and it is great for large and small battles

The first real giants of US military history like, Lee Grant Jackson Stuart, and so many generals rose from non military backgrounds.

Also the dashing cavalry raiders add spice to the game, heroes of opportunist gangsters?

I think I'll focus my article on the point that ACW is a logical and transitional period in terms of warfare, between the "Horse & Musket" era and the "Automatic Rifles & Tanks" era.

That's one way to put it Kraussian, to be sure. It was also the "end of an era" in terms of the romanticizing of warfare. After The ACW war becomes more technical. precise, and truly gritty (not to say it wasn't before). The old "romantic" concepts of chivalry and "high honour" started to go out the window as weapons became deadlier and longer ranged.

I think everyone else hit the main points. It was the last of the big "pretty show" wars before machine guns and true long range artillery started to take its toll of things like cavalry and grenadiers in tight rank and file marching against the enemy. It's also a war where those contrasts become obvious when you look at Sherman and his march to the sea. General Sherman was the first modern practitioner of total war and many in the south loathe his name to this day for it.

Tom: When I used to work in Detroit, one of our division chiefs was a die-hard Southerner named Eddie Green – when something went bad, he used to say, "That went through that po' boy like Sherman went through Georgia" – and he said it like he was still ticked off

Simply, it is seductive. I discussed this with 4 friends : none have any interest in war, military history, nor most history. All felt the draw of it.
I also feel we have a war with battles that could go either way. Most of our interests have a few battles, many skirmishes, and much siege/campaign stuff. Therefore it appeals.
Lastly romance: the Rebs (romantic but rong) v the Union(righteously annoying but right).

For me the appeal is basically watching the Ken Burns doco series with my father when I was a teenager.

OMG, am I that old? That series seems like only yesterday to me!

I aways thought Napoleonics offer whatever ACW does and then some. More interesting uniforms, a far great range of troop types and nations to play, more tactical options with cavalry, infantry squares etc

It's only because my nephew has developed a keen interest in the war and because I recently enjoyed playing the very good Fire & Fury rules at my club, that I've given it a proper consideration.
I still believe Napoleonics is superior (what can you do in ACW that you can't do in Nappy? And now try turning that question around), but ACW does have it's place on my thumbs-up list.

AHHHH MEMORIES. My first intro to ACW was when I was a wee boy and I got to stay up late too watch a film called The Horse Soldiers starring the main man John Wayne.

I remember after the film I ran to my room and set up my WW2 AIRFIX FIGS on the carpet and played out the film on my bedroom floor til my mum turned off my light. imagination was stonger when your wee (small).

Sorry couldnt resist

YouTube link

Personally I blame it all on Shelby Foote.

I find myself drawn to foreign conflicts because I find them more interesting than the home grown variety that I learned about in school.

So the ACW appeals to my sense of the "foreign"

There are some good "what if" options, too. The Trent Affair and later on the building of Confederate ships in British yards almost led to war between the North and Britain. The French 2nd Empire clearly favored the Confederates; ultimately there was a face off along the Rio Grande between the French and the Union that could have led to a war. Russia, worried about a possible European war, sent ships a-visiting to Union harbors one winter, so they wouldn't be frozen in their Russian ports. Citizens believed this was a show of support for the North, rather than a cunning Russian ploy.
Grelber

In these pre-1850 decades the South was not what I would call united. Even in the 1850s and later a lot of Unionist feelings existed.

In 1820 Southern States of Texas and Missiouri did not exist.

In 1820 both Alabama and Mississippi had been States for a couple of years. Odds are the Southern States would have splintered into many independent States and regions of old States (similar to West VA leaving Va in the 1860s). Loyalty of Colonists in Alabama were split between old Mississippi ties and those of Georgia, Carolinians and Tennesseeans.

To me a 1820s and 1830s unifoed Southern culture wopuld not have been strong enogh to create a politically unified South. 1850 maybe though ALabama had still only been a State for 31 years and others even less. Texas only a couple of years.

For me, in order:
-The movie Gettysburg
-The movie Glory
-Finding out about Col Ernst von Vegesack
-Realising how much source material there is and how easily I can get my hands on enough of it to last a lifetime
-TooFatLardies TCHAE

Minondas on 10 Nov 2009 12:43 p.m. PST:

<Personally I blame it all on Shelby Foote.>

Nonsense--It's all Bruce Catton's fault!!!

I'm with capncarp – it's Bruce Catton's fault. I'd never been very interested until I read the first couple of pages of A Stillness at Appomattox but from then I was hooked.

I think one of the reasons I stayed interested is because the Civil War has a modern look to it. The uniforms aren't so different from clothes today; the faces you see in the photographs (at least in the photographs that don't feature generals with huge, bushy beards) look like people you might know.

I suspect the fact that this is a well document war with lots of sources in English have helped to bring it's popularity to the fore.

Airfix certainly helped of some of the older gamers like myself because of the boxed sets from the 1960's. Cheap and easy to get into.

Marara posted :only watch the battle scenes about Gods and Generals. I disagree….the "Men of the Valley" speech is the best part of that film…..

Gettysburg- AWFUL!
Gods and Generals -worse!
Glory- So so.

Ken Burns series- Can't miss! Real history with no fat clean reenactors!

Bob C.

I understand that the Ken Burns series is rather old by now.

Any ideas where I could pick it up? (Maybe in DVD format?)

1) I can approach it with a sense of neutrality (although I know which side I'd be on in the abolitionist debate).

2) Thanks to the Perries, it was cheap to get into.

3) Good sources in English.

4) "Guns at Gettyburg" was easy to learn after "General de Brigade".

No one has mentioned the fact that it was won by the Irish!