Nick's new ACW project

[DintheDin]

It is rare to meet a collection being done so quickly and so historically documented!
This is due to your talent and devotion, so many-many congratulations!

[vtsaogames]

OOOH-WEE they look good!

[nicknorthstar]

Thanks for your kind words. It's also shown me what can be achieved with utter obsession.

God bless our funny little hobby.

Side effects?

Running Civil War themed You Tube videos in the background has meant I'm off to see the Dead South next year (who I'd never heard of before)
& I catch my family humming Rebel Soldier around the house 

I'll post pictures of the 14th North Carolina next, the unit who's flags I've pondered over the most. I even joined the big Civil War forum to pose questions about them, but came up with blanks.

[Captain Blood]

That is an impressive collection Nick 

[TimeMachine]

  Your project is just the inspiration I needed to dust off my paints! I'm finally (!) starting work on 28mm units from the '62 Valley campaign. As a life-long student of Civil War material culture, it does my heart good to see your dedication to properly researching the commanders & standards. 

Regarding the color of the sashes, the official specifications are in the 1861 publication 'Uniform and dress of the Army of the Confederate States'. The regs, along with their full color uniform plates, can be viewed at the fantastic Library of Congress (LOC) website.   "General officers" were to wear buff sashes, "field grade" infantry, Cavalry & artillery officers were to wear Crimson and NCO's were to wear Red sashes. There is a full color plate showing an infantry Colonel wearing what appears as a dark red sash. 
To confirm what they actually wore in the field I double checked several books & online museum sources for ACW relics and equipment. Based on surviving relics, it appears that they did follow the regs (at least on sashes!) Every Confederate (and Federal) Colonels sash pictured in 'Echoes of Glory', etc  is indeed a dark red/Crimson color.

Basically, the CS regulations on sashes copied verbatim the specs in the 'Revised United States Army regulations of 1861' which can also be seen online. That document is a large treasure trove of official info on the Union army. Everything from how a camp was to be laid out to..... the length of the flagpoles is there (just over nine feet)     
Again, thanks for the inspiration, those are great looking regiments!

 

[Painter Jim]

Wow!.... 
Have not been to this thread for awhile and you have been busy.
Very inspiring.

[nicknorthstar]

Thanks TimeMachine. I think I'll be repainting sashes again.

[Kev Dallimore]

Thanks TimeMachine. I think I'll be repainting sahes again.

me too

[AlyMorrison]

Splendid stuff Nick...
Dead South... an excellent band...

From Canada...

All the best.  Aly

[Lord Raglan]

Any plans to vary the size of your regiments Nick?

Gareth

[nicknorthstar]

Yes and No.

I'm painting them in these units of 16, but it isn't necessarily how they'll be used.

For example, I've used them in two games of Longstreet so far, and they were broken up into units of 6 bases (24 figures).

Two units in 2 lines will make very respectable 32 man Black Powder units. I was looking at the scenario in Pickets Charge by 2 fat lardies and in there the units are between 3 and 6 bases.

So I'm not going change the painting routine, but how they are fielded is another story.

[Lord Raglan]

Unless some kind fellow can direct me to a reliable source for ACW unit strengths for each engagement, I am intending to use a bit of random generation to the size of each unit before each game.

So on a D10 roll:
1 = 4 bases
2 = 5 bases
3 to 8 = 6 bases
9 = 7 bases
10 = 8 bases

I think this will help spice things up a bit.

[vtsaogames]

Numbers could be all over the place. But in 1863 Confederate veteran regiments were generally larger than veteran Union regiments because CSA recruits often went to veteran outfits, while most Union recruits went to new regiments, which were large and green. Veteran Union outfits were 200-400 or so. Needless to say, exceptions were the rule.

I was looking at ANV units strengths in early 1864. The cavalry regiments were generally larger than the infantry, since the infantry took much heavier losses.

[Lord Raglan]

Numbers could be all over the place.

This is what I found across several sources, so the random unit size generation seems reasonable, however, given what you have stated, I might well allocate some modifiers to my dice system for certain unit types.

Apologies Nick for hijackings your post with this conversation. 

[nicknorthstar]

No worries.

I'd been thinking the same myself. What is amazing is how resilient the formations were. Units half destroyed at South Mountain stand in the frontline at Antietam a few days later.

Part of the reason I went for 4 bases is Chris Peers is threatening to draft a set of ACW rules based around the 4 base units. In those rules, he suggests actual numbers were not that important to the performance of the unit. I'm no expert, but the evidence of The Bloody Lane at Antietam does seem to support that theory. So the 4 bases represent a formation of men, rather than an actual number. 'Course the draft rules may arrive and he's completely changed his mind.