The American Civil War lasted from April, 1861 to May, 1865, just over forty eight months.
When I was researching the background information for “Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare” I knew there would have to be some way of showing the influence of the outside world on the Player’s project.
The Player’s role in the game is that of Inventor and entrepreneur.
As such, you must be forever cognizant that, while that team of engineering wizards you’ve hired are busy constructing that underwater terror of yours, there is a Civil War raging across the formerly United States.
Current events generated by that Civil War will occur both near and far in relation to your machine shop’s front door, frequently accompanied by a frisson of dread.
Local events can occur anywhere, in any month and at any level: from the state and city down to your own machine shop.
For instance, one of your Journeymen taking a wintry slip on an icy sidewalk can find a place as one of the current events you experience in game play.
That Journeyman’s slip’s place on the list could be right alongside the results of your financial speculation in the cotton market.
Or, maybe you’ll be sent word that the fast packet steamship “Will O’ the Wisp,” has indeed run the US Navy’s blockade and docked at Charleston with that important order of precision tools for your machine shop and some of the latest Paris fashions for your sweetheart.
I took up the task of constructing such a list in a way that it would influence your game play in each of those months, acting as a coldly objective reminder of what living and working during wartime was like in the 19th Century.
To develop the requisite monthly entries, I consulted reference works as diverse as:
Stephen Ambrose’s “Controversies & Commanders,” (on military and political leadership, or the lack of it),
Paul Starobin’s “Madness Rules the Hour,” (Charleston SC prior to and just after Fort Sumter),
Christopher Dickey’s superb “Our Man in Charleston,” (on the fine line of diplomacy being tread by the British Consul in Charleston, SC.),
Barnet Schecter’s enthralling account of the post-Gettysburg Draft Riots in New York City, “Devil’s Own Work,”
and (of course) my beat-up set of “Battles & Leaders of the Civil War.”
I was most thankful in making use of E.B. Long’s monumental “The Civil War Day by Day,” a well-thumbed copy of which sits grinning from the bookshelf in front of me.
With the information I was able to gather from these and other reference works, both online and in print, I was able to “flesh out” a selected list for each month of the entire American Civil War: a Fortunes of War Cyclopedia.
Two Cyclopedias, really: one for the Union and the other for the Confederacy.
While developing the Cyclopedias, I was struck by how different the causes and effects of a month’s current events were handled by Union and Confederacy.
During the Time Phase of the game turn, you as the Player will roll a ten-sided die and cross-reference the result on the Cyclopedia’s monthly entry.
As an example, here is July,1862 as experienced by the Confederacy …
July – 1862 – The CSA
Die Roll Result
1 Yellow Fever outbreak sweeps the city. Roll D10: number rolled is number of employees sickened by Yellow Fever. For each employee, roll the D10 one more time. A die roll of 1 or 2 means that employee has died from Yellow Fever. Remove employee’s character card and place it face-up at the bottom of the appropriate character card pile.
2-4 CSS “Arkansas” ironclad scores victory over Union Navy on the Mississippi. Add Investor or Mechanic to your team.
5-6 Confederate General Bragg’s Kentucky Campaign monopolizes railroad network west of the Appalachians. If your shop is in Mobile, your machine shop’s construction is reduced to one Bulkhead or one Mechanism equipment tile for this month.
7-8 Boll weevil infestation causes turmoil among cotton speculators. Roll die: Even = Add $30 one-time to your project treasury, Odd = Lose $40 from your project treasury (project treasury may go into debt.)
9-10 City-wide “sanitation issues” cause dysentery outbreak. Roll die. ODD = no effect. EVEN = construction reduced to one Bulkhead OR Mechanism tile this month only.
… and here, the same month as experienced by the Union:
July – 1862 – The USA
Die Roll Result
1 – 2 McClellan’s inaction near Richmond has dampened Union morale, causing an Investor to get cold feet and resign from your Project. Remove and Investor card (your choice) from your Project Team and place it face down at the bottom of the Investor character pile.
3 – 4 Political repercussions from McClellan’s retreat from Richmond have reached a fever pitch in Washington. If your machine shop is in Washington, you are subpoenaed to appear before the House Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War to answer “allegations of war-profiteering activities involving your receiving confiscated Confederate Navy property while in Memphis, Tennessee.” Your machine shop is padlocked by U.S. Marshals for one month only, and no construction is possible.
5 – 6 Rumors of a new “Confederate Kraken” prowling the Mississippi River are true, as the Memphis-built CSS “Arkansas” ironclad conducts operations from the Yazoo River to Vicksburg, Mississippi, dueling with Union Admiral Farragut’s Gulf Squadron. This news terrifies an Investor, who leaves the Project (your choice). Remove the Investor’s character card and place it face-down on the bottom of the Investor character card pile.
7 – 9 New Orleans’ church bells, originally donated by Confederate church-goers to be melted down and cast into cannon, are confiscated by Union General “Beast” Butler. The General sees to it that these contraband church bells are sold at auction in Boston, Massachusetts. If your machine shop is in Boston, pay $10 and draw three Bulkhead and/or Mechanism tiles and add them to your materials pile.
10 Mild summer days means an increase in the pace of your Project’s construction. Add an additional Bulkhead or Mechanism tile to your fishboat at no charge.
As you can see, the Player building his fishboat in the Confederacy is experiencing daily life on a more local or regional level: here, your city’s “sanitation issues” resulting a dysentery outbreak, causing your machine shop employees to visit the privy more than the workbench. Regionally, a boll weevil infestation of this year’s cotton crop can be a financial blessing or a curse for your project’s treasury.
The same Player’s project based in Washington, Boston or Philadelphia would include more events of a national and even international origin.
In the Union Cyclopedia entries found for October 1862, forty percent of the possible outcomes are newspaper- or rumor-sourced.
Nationally, politics can rear its ugly head, as here the United States House of Representatives’ Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War can subpoena you to answer “allegations of war-profiteering activities.”
This subpoena also gets your machine shop padlocked for a month by the US Marshals,
delaying your fishboat’s construction schedule.
Please note that news affecting both sides in the conflict, such as that shown here about the “CSS Arkansas” may cause quite different results for the opposing sides.
Using the two Cyclopedias, you will see the Civil War being fought in two very different manners: the South clinging to rapidly outmoded agriculture-based economic systems and ruled by the social norms of the 19th Century.
Read and ponder the words of the South’s national anthem, “Dixie.”
“I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old times there are not forgotten…
Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land.”
Meanwhile the North, with its national wartime economy and transportation network forming the tightening coils of Winfield Scott’s successful “Anaconda Plan,” is striding, nay marching purposefully and remorselessly into the 20th Century.
No wonder the North’s anthem was entitled “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
It is a hymn, you notice.
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword
His Truth is marching on.”
(Note: All graphic images of Infernal Machine game materials used in this series of articles are subjective and may change and appear different in their final form. All images show sourcing unless otherwise noted.)
Previous Infernal Machine Articles
Author: Edward Ostermeyer
The Cyclopedias show the impact of the war on the player, but is there a way the player impacts the wider war? For example, if the player is building his submarine in Mobile, Alabama, for the Confederacy, if he is successful in building and using it, does it prevent or delay the Union capture of Mobile? Could a successful player break the Union blockade and change the outcome of the war?