"What book or film inspired you to get into ACW?" Topic

While I had relatives on both sides of the war and, My dad loved walking the ACW battlefields – I was never inclined to build miniature armies for the ACW period.

That changed when I was reading a review of the Wiley Sword Book – "The Confederacy's Last Hurrah". While I have found other books and articles – it was reading about his description of the Confederates going into battle at Franklin in 1864 – with a frontal assault, little support of artillery against an entrenched Union Army. Later making multiple assaults – knowing that the prospects weren't good for survival. Yet they charged…

That book inspired me to learn more about the ACW in many facets.

What was the book or film that inspired you to begin to build an army?

The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War with introduction by Bruce Catton. (Actually, the Junior Readers Edition) It had all those battlefield maps with the soldiers in battle lines for the major battles. I still have it, as battered and faded it is.

I started playing ACW when Airfix brought out their Union and Confederate figures. I don't think we even had a TV then.

Great Battles in History board book series. Their Gettysburg book.

Bought a used copy several years back at a high price because of the memories from a childhood copy.

I'm 100% with Rusty Musket. My Grandfather gifted me that American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War book in 1969 and it's been an obsession ever since. I still have that book.

Another for Rusty!

+2 or +3? Rusty Musket

+4 Rusty Musket

I don't remember if there was a specific book, but I do remember my father had a copy of Paul Angle's The Civil War.

When my brother and I were 9-10 years old, we went on vacation to Washington DC to see the sights, but we stayed in Manassas, VA and walked the battlefield. I was immediately hooked.

MPC produced the Airfix figures, so I started getting scads of them.

Eric

Another vote for Rusty. I remember a TV series in junior high called "The Gray Ghost" about John Mosby.

I too remember "The Gray Ghost" somewhere around kindergarten or first grade. And a "We Were There" book on Gettysburg, walking Gettysburg at about 10 or 12, and a Marx playset. But proper ACW wargame armies were very late--maybe 25-30 years after Napoleonics and more a matter of availability of information and figures. Still not a major period for me.

NMCoT

What Rusty said.

Also the the Topps Civil War collector cards I bought when I was a kid!

Kim

Totally agree with Rusty. I still have my copy after all these years. Used to stare at the maps for ages.

History Channel 's Civil War Journal. Other kids my age in elementary School watched SpongeBob. I watched Civil War Journal.

Rustymusket wins with me as well. Still have the one I stared at for hours 40 years ago.

I don't actually collect and paint for it, but happy to play in club games. I'll blame it on:
Centennial History of the Civil War trilogy by Bruce Catton.

+1 rustymusket

Later "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara

Good lord, yes. Junior American Heritage -prompted in a curious way by the ACW sequence in 'How The West Was Won.' Then Airfix 'Federals' & 'Confederates.'

The Red Badge of Courage, both the book and the film. More recently, Ken Burns magnificent documentary series on the war.

The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War, Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy.

Another vote for the American Heritage book it cost my father 32s/6d from John Menzies( a lot of money back in the day).

My mothers stories about her families experiences in the ACW.
That is why I game mostly the fight for Missouri and the Trans Mississippi.

Growing up in Mississippi and playing with Marx Blue & Gray set as a kid was my impetus.

Jim

For me, the ACW was an obvious period for my groups of gamers in the Galveston, Houston, San Antonio & DFW metroplex with most of us being Texans plus some transplanted Yankees.

I became interested in the ACW from reading Bruce Catton in Jr. High School in the early 70s. I didn't even know miniature gaming existed. I was playing SPI and AH board games. Miniatures came much later in the early 80s. The ACW was my only period until the early 90s.

Playing Terrible Swift Sword just after it's release by SPI in the mid 70's. Until then the ACW was just another cowboys and Indians movie on Sunday afternoon telly.

Driving back and forth on Hwy 29 from D.C. to Charlottesville.

pjm

Seconding Lewis Cannon – "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara.

Red Badge of Courage movie & book. Bruce Catton's series on the Civil War.

Another vote for The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War, particularly the artwork of David Greenspan. It looks so much like a miniatures game! I was drawn to it before I even knew what a miniatures game was. I still have my old, battered, copy with the binding completely shot, as well.

Also, though not a book or movie, the Airfix figures probably had something to do with it, too.

Well, pretty much all those books most of you had mentioned. But I actually grew up right in the middle of the major VA battlefields.

Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Court House, Richmond, Petersburg…at one time or another I lived within a stones throw of all of them…as in walking out into your backyard or down the street and you were on the land where troops marched, fought and died.

and in the last few years I got to see all the statues torn down…well you know…for "reasons.."

@Dal Gavan, yeah I was playing the SPI quad games well before I read Catton. And the American Heritage Battle-Cry game long before that, but I think that just had the rules inside the box cover, not book involved…

So, poll entry for:
SPI rulebooks

: 3

@miniMo- I wouldn't be surprised if there were more out there, mate. Especially outside the US, where books and movies on the ACW weren't common.

I would appear that many of us have similar pedigrees. Two events were seminal for me: the American Heritage book with the color maps and the ACW collector cards. I see both today in my mind's eye. I would look at the amazing battle maps, and ponder on each diifferent color on the maps. Inspiring.

I was already interested, but really got hooked when my older brother bought me a paperback book called A Short History of the Civil War (hardback title: Ordeal by Fire) by Fletcher Pratt (who, I didn't know then, was also a wargamer). I think the paperback version is still in print -- it's a very good read!

Probably the "The Gray Ghost". I was really young when I got interested in the CW, younger than 6. I would have been 4 when this ran, but I remember watching it. I'm sure it would be corny today, like watching "Combat". My first book probably "The American Heritage Picture History of The Civil War". Loved those miniatures like battles. Still have that book, one of the few of 100's I had at one time.

Kim, I had some of those Tops cards. Sold them last year.

Army of the Potomac trilogy by Bruce Catton.

The American Heritage book I borrowed from the Library as a child and then subsequently bought when funds were available.

It is amazing how accurate Mr Greenspans pictures of the battlefields are given the constraints of his medium.

Best wishes,

Chris

Another +1 for Rusty! It didn't lead to real miniatures gaming (circa 1973 when I was in 1st grade), since I was still just playing with toy soldiers, cowboys and Indians, but the seeds were sown and I would suppose my first "miniatures" were a few years later and consisted of colored squares of construction paper about 1/2" square each representing 100 men. Top down wargaming at its finest! lol

Blue for the Union forces and a mixture of browns, tans, and gray for the Confederates. Gray was hard to get back then! Stacks of twenty organized in neat rows with commanders names next to groups and organized on the old black cardboard, and folded Avalon Hill game boards sufficed to keep things ready between battles.

Bruce Catton Trilogy