This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History

-Dedicated to Civil War episodes, battles, people and ships that also appear in GMT’s Rebel Raiders on the High Seas, my next game.

April 30, 1863

            Historical Events:  The Camerone, Stoneman’s Raid and Porter at Grand Gulf.

            Game Connections:  Three big events for one day.

  While the epic last stand of the Foreign Legion at The Camerone is beyond the scope of Rebel Raiders, the French intervention in Mexico is not – as Card 61 Maximillian  (see below), which gives the South a free blockade runner and a bonus to its Supply roll each turn it is in effect attests.

Stoneman’s Raid in which 10,000 Yankee cavalrymen were sent by “Fighting Joe” Hooker to disrupt Lee’s supply lines in Virginia, should have been a huge success, considering how well Colonel Grierson did with a single brigade in Mississippi (see Card 42 The Horse Soldiers – and the blog posts from April 18 and 19 commemorating it – and the John Ford-John Wayne movie based upon that ride).  It was not, however, in part because half the Union cavalry lolled about Rapidan Station celebrating a minor victory and Stoneman, who suffered from piles (perhaps the worst affliction of all for a horseman), failed to push the other half to action.

On the Mississippi, on April 29 Acting Rear Admiral  David Dixon Porter silenced the lower batteries around Grand Gulf in a five-and-a-half hour slugfest, then sent the Lafayette and Carondelet (which appears in the game as Card 15 ) back in an action that continued on into the morning hours of the 30^th to pound the upper batteries.  This opened the river to Grant’s transports.