Tag Archives: Werbaneth
A(nother) Review of Cruel Morning: Shiloh 1862
Another look at Tiny Battle’s ACW game ~
Jim Werbaneth, 27 July 2018
Cruel Morning Cover
The Battle of Shiloh was a harbinger of the bloodbath to come in the Civil War. It also marked a turning point in the leadership of both sides. Albert Sidney Johnston, one of the most highly-regarded Confederate generals at the start of the conflict, was mortally wounded, rendering him a “what if” in a theater characterized by rebel generals who were mediocre at best; how could the war have progressed had Johnston remained alive and in charge, in place of Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk, John Bell Hood or Joseph Johnston? On the Union side, Ulysses S. Grant prepared poorly, and was caught off guard by the Confederate onslaught. However, he recovered, and his Army of the Tennessee did not just survive, but with the aid of Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, went on the offensive on the second day of battle. Despite heavy criticism of the early stages of the battle, a temporary sidelining afterward, Grant and his career survived, and he went on to become the premier, even definitive, military leader of the Civil War.
Cruel Morning is a brigade-scale treatment of Shiloh, on a time scale of daily turns. The footprint is small, with an eleven by seventeen-inch unmounted map. From its small size and relatively low unit count, one would expect it to be a fast-playing, easily-accessible game. However, the final project ends up as something different.
click images to enlarge
