Olustee battle game: the largest battle fought in Florida
A Union column marching along the railroad through the pine barrens, a lake and a swamp squeezing the road, and brigades sent in one at a time. Olustee is part of The Western Campaigns in Civy War.
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.
Olustee
The Western Campaigns
February 20, 1864 · 2:30 p.m.
As the Union, drive Finegan off the railroad and take Olustee Station. Hawley's brigade is up first, the 7th Connecticut out front and the 7th New Hampshire and the untried 8th U.S. Colored Troops behind. Barton's 47th, 48th and 115th New York are close behind, and Montgomery's brigade, the 54th Massachusetts and the 1st North Carolina Colored, is at the back of the column. Feed them in together, not one at a time.
As the Confederacy, stop the Federals in the pines and hold the road to Lake City. Colquitt's Georgians, the 6th, 19th, 23rd, 27th and 28th Georgia and the 6th Florida Battalion, go forward to meet them, and Harrison's brigade comes up from the station. Ammunition is short and some of your regiments have never fought.
The battle
In February 1864 a Union force under Truman Seymour landed at Jacksonville with a plan to bring Florida back into the Union. Seymour marched west along the railroad toward Lake City, and on February 20 his column met Joseph Finegan's Confederates near Olustee Station, where Ocean Pond and a swamp narrowed the way.
Seymour sent his brigades in piecemeal and they were beaten one at a time. The 7th New Hampshire broke in the confusion of a botched change of formation, and the 8th U.S. Colored Troops, in their first fight, stood for more than an hour in the open and lost over 300 men and their colonel, Charles Fribley. Barton's New Yorkers held until dusk. Then Montgomery's brigade came up at the double; the 54th Massachusetts and the 1st North Carolina Colored stopped the Confederate advance and covered the retreat of the whole column.
Union losses were about 1,860, a third of the force; Confederate about 950. The Federals fell back to Jacksonville and held it for the rest of the war. There were also reports of wounded Black soldiers being killed on the field after the battle.
Free or paid
Paid: part of The Western Campaigns, a one-time purchase that unlocks Chickamauga, Olustee, Kennesaw Mountain and Atlanta (Perryville, the first, is free). The map is a sketch of the battlefield of Ocean Pond by Lieutenant M. B. Grant, a Confederate engineer, published in 1867.
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.