January 30, 1864 – Pickett and the Pirates: Cutlasses and the Charge that Wasn’t

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History

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

January 30, 1864 –   Pickett and the Pirates:  Cutlasses and the Charge that Wasn’t

Historical Event:  On January 30, 1864 General George Pickett, eager to erase the perceived stain upon his honor and restore his reputation after the doomed if gallant charge at Gettysburg, marched his division out of Kinston, North Carolina with the intention of regaining the port of New Berne for the South.   His three brigades of infantry and small force of cavalry contained only about 4,500 men, but were supplemented by 14 pieces of artillery and Colonel John Taylor Wood’s piratical rowboat flotilla – a ragtag force of local men armed with old naval cutlasses and antique muskets.

Pickett did advance upon the Union positions of General I.N. Palmer, but decided they were too strong to attack head-on (proving he had learned something going up that long, low slope toward the Copse of Trees the summer before).   Instead, he pinned his hopes on taking out the Union warships that were supporting Palmer and his 3,000 troops.  In the early morning hours of February 2  Wood’s cutlass-wielding pirates performed a successful “cutting out expedition” to board and capture the USS Underwriter, one of four armed steamers that were anchored in the Trent and Neuse Rivers in support of Palmer’s defenses.  Unable to build up steam in the cold boilers in time so he could get underway and attack the rest of the Yankee flotilla, however, Wood burned the warship.   He and his men made their way back to Pickett’s lines, but with the Union forces now on alert and still backed by three other gunboats, the longhaired Confederate general felt it best to retire.

Game Connection:    In Rebel Raiders as in the war, New Berne is an important port for blockade runners, especially those on the more lucrative run to and from Europe.  It also provides a beachhead for an attack up into Goldsboro, from which the Yankee army can either threaten Richmond or strike south toward the port of Wilmington and from there down the coast toward Savannah and Charleston, to take those key cities from the land side.  Taking back New Berne or any other key city or port captured by the Union can throw off the Union timetable and gain valuable time for the Confederacy, and to do so the Southern Player can purchase a Counterattack in the build phase – or play one of the cards (such as CSN Card 103 – Uprising or 107 – The South Shall Rise) that allow for a Counterattack (and one hopefully more successful than the abortive attempt led by Pickett at New Berne). 

This Day 150 Years Ago in Rebel Raiders' History

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History –

Hours to Remember: 10:30 am, 1 pm, 3 pm….Vicksburg & Gettysburg

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

July 3, 1863 -  For the South, The Saddest Day

            Historical Events:   

Vicksburg. At 10:30  in the morning, Confederate officers approached the Union lines at Vicksburg under a white flag.  They carried a request from General Pemberton for terms.   Although famed in newspapers as  U.S. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant,  after responding with that famous phrase the Union commander DID grant terms:  Pemberton’s men marched out but after giving their parole were left to go on their way rather than be interred as prisoners of war.    Grant was not necessarily being a gentleman – neither he nor Admiral Porter had any way to transport let alone care for nearly 30,000 Rebel soldiers.

Gettysburg.  At 1 in the afternoon the Army of Northern Virginia began the greatest cannonade yet heard in the Western Hemisphere.  For nearly two hours over 150 guns unleashed their fire upon the Union lines on and behind Cemetery Ridge.  As the barrage lifted, General George Pickett and 15,000 men from three divisions began that epic charge which Faulkner romanced so well in Intruder in the Dust:

 For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox  look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world's roaring rim.

            Game Connection:   While Gettysburg does not appear on the map for Rebel Raiders, the Confederate invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania is represented by the Lee Moves North card (CSN Card 77).  Vicksburg is on the map, and as noted in the July 1 post on this blog, many of the ships and generals and weapons take took part in that epic siege are represented by cards.  The loss of Vicksburg costs the Confederacy dear in Rebel Raiders, especially if Memphis and New Orleans have also fallen, as that triggers major victory point losses for the South at that instant, and during the supply phase of each subsequent turn.