Cedar Mountain battle game: the charge that shook Stonewall Jackson
Two small Union divisions against three of Jackson's, and for a few minutes it looked like enough. Cedar Mountain is one of the four Forgotten Fields in Civy War, and it is free.
One scenario, playable from either side. Every battle runs five minutes on the clock against a Green, Regular or Veteran enemy: the attacker has to break the line before nightfall, the defender has to hold.
Cedar Mountain
Free · Forgotten Fields
August 9, 1862 · 5:45 p.m.
As the Union, break Jackson's line before A. P. Hill comes up. Crawford's brigade, the 5th Connecticut, 28th New York, 46th Pennsylvania and 10th Maine, goes out of the woods against Jackson's left, with Gordon's brigade near it, while Augur's division goes in on the other flank.
As the Confederacy, hold until Hill's division reaches the field. Your guns hold the slopes of the mountain and Ewell's brigades the right. General Winder has just been killed by a shell, and his division, the Stonewall Brigade among it, is still forming in the woods on the left. Hold the gate at the Crittenden farm. Thomas's, Branch's and Archer's brigades of Hill's division arrive during the battle.
The battle
In the summer of 1862 John Pope's new Army of Virginia moved south toward Gordonsville, and Lee sent Stonewall Jackson to stop it. On August 9 Jackson met Nathaniel Banks's corps below Cedar Mountain, south of Culpeper.
Banks was outnumbered, but Jackson's divisions were strung out on the road and only two had arrived. After hours of artillery fire Banks sent his infantry in. Crawford's charge caught Jackson's left in the flank and rolled it up, and for a few minutes his army was in real danger. Jackson rode into the rout and rallied the men himself. Then A. P. Hill's division came up and struck the exhausted Federals, who had no reserves, and drove Banks back across the fields by nightfall. Crawford's brigade lost more than half its men in less than an hour; the 5th Connecticut was among the hardest hit.
Cedar Mountain opened the campaign that ended three weeks later at Second Manassas. Banks lost the day, but his men had shaken Jackson as few Union troops ever did.
Free or paid
Free. Cedar Mountain is one of the Forgotten Fields, four lesser-known battles fought in part by Connecticut regiments, all free with no purchase. The map is the engraving of the battlefield from General Pope's report to Congress's Committee on the Conduct of the War.
Thirteen battles, the Drill Field and the Field Manual are free. The Historical Campaigns, Grant's Campaigns and The Western Campaigns are optional one-time purchases that restore on every device signed in to the same Apple ID.