A long Confederate breastwork with one weak joint, and a morning fog over the swamp. New Bern 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.
New Bern
Free · Forgotten Fields
March 14, 1862 · 8 a.m.
As the Union, break Branch's line and take New Bern. Foster attacks on the right with the 10th Connecticut and his Massachusetts regiments, Reno on the left. Parke's brigade, the 4th Rhode Island and the 8th and 11th Connecticut, waits to strike wherever the line gives.
As the Confederacy, hold the breastworks from Fort Thompson to the creek with some four thousand men against Burnside's eleven thousand. Vance's 26th North Carolina holds the redans beyond the railroad; militia hold the brickyard where the two lines meet. Behind you is the Trent River and one bridge into town.
The battle
A month after Roanoke Island, Burnside's expedition came up the Neuse River toward New Bern. Brigadier General Lawrence O'Bryan Branch held a long breastwork below the town, anchored on Fort Thompson by the river and running inland to the railroad, with a second line of redans beyond it.
The weak place was where the two lines met, at a brickyard by the railroad, held by militia who had never been under fire. Reno's men found the gap and the militia broke. Parke's brigade poured through along the railroad, the 4th Rhode Island first and the 8th and 11th Connecticut close behind, and took the breastworks from the flank while Foster pressed in front. Branch's line came apart and his army fled across the Trent, burning the bridge. Sneden counted 470 Union and 578 Confederate losses.
New Bern stayed in Union hands for the rest of the war. It became a base for raids up the rivers of North Carolina, and thousands of people who freed themselves made their way to its lines; a settlement of freedpeople grew up across the Trent.
Free or paid
Free. New Bern is one of the Forgotten Fields, four lesser-known battles fought in part by Connecticut regiments, all free with no purchase. It is played on Robert Knox Sneden's plan of the battle, drawn from maps made by Branch's own engineers, from the Library of Congress.
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.